


Once Upon An Avalon

by TheSilverQueen



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Magic, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, References to Merlin (TV), References to Once Upon A Time (TV), The Dark One (Once Upon a Time)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 12:16:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11440683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSilverQueen/pseuds/TheSilverQueen
Summary: In the beginning, there was Camelot and Excalibur and the Round Table and Arthur Pendragon, the High King. Galahad had been proud of who he was and who he fought for and what he represented, back then.Then came the Darkness, and the whole world changed.* * * * * *Alternate summary: What if Harry Hart and Chester King were the real Galahad and Arthur of old?Featuring art byaomaoethat can be foundHERE





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever contribution to the [Kingsman Big Bang](http://kingsman-bigbang.tumblr.com/) and only my second ever Kingsman work, so uh. Hi, everyone, and thanks so much to the lovely mods for putting this all together!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For every Once Upon A Time, there is a beginning.

In the beginning, there was Camelot and Excalibur and the Round Table and Arthur Pendragon, the High King. Galahad had been proud of who he was and who he fought for and what he represented, back then. 

Some might argue that it should be Once Upon A Time, but Galahad respectfully disagrees. Once upon a time is for fairytales and happily ever afters. 

In the beginning, on the other hand, implies that there must be a middle and an ending, and sometimes all three can happen and still leave things unhappy. Sometimes heroes die before their time, leaving behind quarreling kingdoms and splintered factions. Sometimes lovers never meet, let alone steal sweet kisses under the setting sun. And sometimes, a prophesied destiny is just that – a prophecy. 

If this were truly a “Once upon a time” tale, it would go something like this:

Once upon a time, there was a boy who inherited a great kingdom, and he made it his life’s work to make it even greater. His name was Arthur Pendragon, and he fought off evil sorcerers and terrifying monsters and conquerors from across the sea. He united the kingdoms under a single banner of Albion and he ruled it as the High King, with a sword forged of the finest steel and bathed in dragon’s breath in his hand. Three things he cherished most of all: his wizard Merlin, who sat at his left hand; his most trusted knight Galahad, who sat at his right; and his queen Guinevere, the woman for whom true love – not power or status or money – triumphed. 

The High King Arthur Pendragon ruled long and well and wisely, until one by one his men faded and his castles crumbled and his memory became legend, and he himself went to Avalon, to await the call for when Albion’s need would be greatest.

He died a beloved man, an honorable man, a good man.

There is just one problem.

This is not a tale that begins with “Once upon a time”. This is the tale of when hearts and minds grow bitter and dark, when right and wrong become blurred and ever-changing, when heroes become villains and villains become heroes. 

So.

In the beginning, there was Camelot and Excalibur and the Round Table and Arthur Pendragon, the High King.

Then came the Darkness, and the whole world changed.

* * *

The Darkness comes at sunset. It is an awful, terrible, mighty thing, a cloud of emptiness so complete that even the brightest torches dim in its presence. 

They have heard whispers of its coming, of course. Ravens had been sent warning of a being larger than a dragon that swallowed all in its path, ravaging forests and carving deep furrows into mountainsides. Whole towns disappeared into its belly, never to be seen again, and no weapon – not swords, not arrows, not even fire – had even made it pause, never mind stop.

Until now, Galahad had thought the stories were just that: stories.

Now, though, with the Darkness raging in front of the entire hall, he thinks that perhaps he should have paid more attention to those stories.

“I am Arthur Pendragon, High King of Albion,” Arthur says, and his voice rings out through the hall like an arrow cleaving the air. He has not drawn Excalibur, although Galahad wishes he would. They all know mere mortal swords forged by mortal means are not enough to stop this Darkness, even if every knight of the Round Table would gladly give their lives to protect the King. “What do you want?”

The Darkness pulses, creeping forward and then back, almost like an indecisive colt that’s just recently found its legs. 

“I say,” Arthur repeats, and this time he does draw Excalibur, “what do you want from Camelot? Speak, creature, or be gone from this land.”

The sight of Exalibur does something; Galahad cannot explain what. But it seems to recoil, just a little, before it gathers itself, smaller and denser and ever smaller, until it rockets around the table, consuming all in its path. When it touches Galahad, he swings – of course he fights, it’s what he was born to do – but his blade meets no resistance. Instead he finds himself gasping on the floor, fingers numb as though plunged in ice, frost rimming his hair and the seams of his clothes, and he only just manages to look up in time to see the Darkness shoot straight into the ceiling and then slam back down, landing with a thunderous crash in the middle of the Round Table.

And then suddenly Gahalad is ravenous, _ravenous_ , as though the supper he had just consumed was nothing, and he could eat five, ten, twenty meals and still not be sated.

This Darkness wants _food_.

There is a soft thud from the doorway.

Merlin.

“Enough,” Merlin says, and his voice is so quiet Galahad hardly hears it above the hunger in his heart, but something in him loosens, just a touch, at the sound of a friendly voice. 

Merlin was young, once. Galahad remembers him as a bright-eyed boy, slender and quick and even quicker to smile, fierce and unmoving in Arthur’s defense. But magic has taken its toll, just as surely as the weight of the kingdom has lent frown lines to the queen and white hairs to the king, and now Merlin walks only with the aid of a carved staff, shoulders hunched and face forever hidden in shadow.

One by one, he passes each of the knights, and one by one, they are released, to lay gasping on the ground or leaning against chairs. The torches brighten too, but it is a different kind of brightness – the bright white light of magic, not the lovely warm yellow of flame. 

“Enough,” Merlin repeats, and the Darkness recoils.

But it does not leave.

“Merlin,” the king says. It is neither friendly nor unfriendly; time has washed away the bitterness of old secrets, but so too has it eroded the edges of their brotherhood. They are king and court sorcerer now, no more and no less. “What is this?”

“Old,” Merlin replies, and his face never turns away from where the Darkness coils, twisting and writhing like a living thing. “Old as time, and just as ravenous. You have seen pure light, my king, in the heart of a unicorn and the flame of a dragon and the rays of the rising sun. But for every light, there is a darkness, and for all of years of plenty, here is the hunger to match them.”

Merlin’s speech is not exactly awe-inspiring. How, after all, do mere mortals fight something older than time?

Galahad can see some of the younger knights twitch, their fingers itching to take up swords and bows again. They are young, untested by war and unmarred by the scars and bloodshed of the battlefield. He is not among their number. He has been to war many, many times under the blood-red sigil of the Pendragon, and he has fought many creatures that – in his youth – he never would have dreamed of. He has crossed blades with warriors of stone and trees that feed off of human blood and wind that steals the very breath from one’s lungs. He has even, once, fought a dragon, ancient and enormous, and the scar on his leg throbs in memory of that battle.

He has no desire to fight another creature old as time.

Still, this is Camelot, the court of the High King. Fight they will, because they are knights, and fighting is in their blood.

“How do we defeat it?”

Merlin shakes his head, slowly, as though each motion pains him. It probably does. Felling the last of the dragons had done no favors to Merlin’s strength. “You cannot defeat hunger. Anything we would send into its maw would only make it all the hungrier.”

“Then what does it want?” 

Ah, Guinevere. Once she was shy and sweet and simple; now she is a Queen, an equal unmatched by any at Arthur’s court. Her dress is the blood-red of the Pendragon, her eyes fierce and set, her shoulders firm and unyielding. Even now, as she steps into the light at her husband’s side, voice raised to the Darkness, her other hand clutches close a dagger blessed with Merlin’s protection. She has killed in Arthur’s defense before; Galahad imagines that if the Darkness were to swoop down for Arthur, it would a toss-up if Merlin or Guinevere would get in the way first.

Even now, Merlin bows before the Queen, a gesture he reserves for no one else, not even the King. “It wants the greatest gift of all,” he answers. “A human soul, willingly given, and a human host to walk amongst us undetected.”

Arthur swallows, and for a second – just one single second – Galahad can see all of time, stretching before him.

Arthur will volunteer. The Darkness will take him, and Camelot will crumble.

Arthur will try to volunteer. Guinevere will interfere. The Darkness will take her, and Arthur and Camelot will crumble.

Arthur will try to volunteer. Merlin will interfere. The Darkness will take him, and Arthur and Camelot will crumble.

This is not the time for noble self-sacrifice. This is the time to do as they were sworn: to protect their King, to protect their kingdom, and to protect Albion. Albion and Arthur must come first, before all else. This they had all sworn on bended knee, never imagining the day that one might come before another.

Arthur opens his mouth.

Galahad cuts his palm.

The Darkness crackles, and Galahad can feel the cold and the hunger, even though no one has moved. He grits his teeth; he imagines he might need to get used to that feeling.

“I am Galahad, son of Sir Lancelot and Lady Elaine,” Galahad says clearly, because bloodline is important, but so is honestly. He can’t imagine a creature old as time cares about illegitimacy. “I offer my soul, willingly and without reservation.”

“Galahad,” Merlin says sharply, even as the court begins to whisper anew. “Galahad, do you understand what you offer?”

“I understand what it has to offer me.”

_An eternity of pain,_ he does not say. He does not have to. Of them all, Merlin understands the best what it means to let forces older than time take their bites of you, nibble by nibble by nibble, until all that is left is the shiny cold core, forgiveness and softness and compassion gnawed off by hungry thieves. Merlin could have chosen to shift that burden to someone else, anyone else; magic – even the magic of a million of his kin burned at the stake, dragon and wizard alike – cannot force itself through someone unwilling. Yet he bears that burden, if not gladly then grimly, because he knows he can, and he knows the consequences if he did not.

“If you do this,” Merlin replies, “you will no longer be Galahad.”

It nearly makes Galahad laugh. They have all changed from the day they first received their name. Guinevere went from a simple serving girl to Queen of the land. Arthur went from a spoiled prince to a respected and beloved king. Even Merlin, who’d known the burden and boon of magic since he was a babe, has changed. 

What is one more change, in the end?

The Darkness roils above them. Even now, the steady burning brightness of Merlin’s magic is starting to give way beneath its strength. It grows, slowly but surely, and stretches its hunger to the far edges of the Round Table. Given time, it would consume them all.

“Either I give it a willing host,” Galahad retorts, because they are running out of time, “or it will take one from amongst us and exact its price tenfold.”

Arthur reaches over and takes his hand, because he is a sentimental fool. “I do not ask this of you. Your service alone would see you a noble of the court, fat with wealth and food and so titled that the trumpeters would falter before ever they reached the end.”

“I am afraid I am not one for titles.”

He is Galahad, Knight of King Arthur’s Round Table. That is the only title he will ever need.

Still, for all his sentiment, Arthur is a master of strategy. They both know he is merely stalling because he has failed to find an adequate way out.

“My king,” Galahad says, and he softens the blow in the only way he can. “Let me do this.”

“You are my _brother_ ,” Arthur hisses, and his grip is so tight it is as if he wishes they could become one and face the Darkness together, to cast it out and live another day to drink and be merry and trade old stories. “I cannot simply sit by and let you be consumed by that – that _thing_!”

“I am not asking you to sit by. I am asking you to watch, and to strike me down if I am a threat.” When Arthur blanches, Galahad tightens his own grip. The eternity of Darkness can wait one more moment. “Arthur, think of Camelot. Think of Merlin. Think of _your queen_.” He waits, just a beat, for Arthur to remember Guinevere, resplendent and glowing on their wedding day, when he had sworn before the court to protect her until his last breath, and then Galahad presses his advantage. “Perhaps, if we are very lucky, Excalibur can end this monster before it does any damage.”

Arthur sets his jaw. Ah, his stubborn, stubborn king. 

So Galahad sighs and doles out his last and most precious weapon. This is the price of loving someone: knowing that your love can sting far more bitterly than anything else in the world. “Arthur, you once promised me a boon. Any boon, as long as it was in your power to give it. I call upon that now.”

“Anything,” Arthur swears.

“Grant me this honor to serve you,” Galahad says, and he tightens his grip upon his king’s hands to hold him steady through the physical blow that each word is, “this one, last time.”

Arthur is, above all else, a man of his word. This is how he became king, after all – when he swore to make Albion the greatest land of all and Camelot her shining capital, when he swore to repeal the ban on magic and begin to lay to rights the imbalance of thousands slaughtered in his father’s name, when he looked at the court stuffed full of preening, weak-kneed, double-chinned nobles and swore to make Camelot a court of honor once again. These are all oaths he has upheld, and more besides.

Of course, this does not mean Arthur is stupid. He prefers the word wise, but Galahad has called him a conniving bastard more than once and meant it each time.

This time, he looks first to Guinevere and then to Merlin.

Guinevere, though, is in some ways more practical than Arthur might ever be. He was a knight raised on tales of chivalry and the power of his blood and name; she was a servant first, who witnessed the ugly reality of those who spoke one thing and meant another. She already knows where this path leads.

“We will never forget you,” Guinevere tells him, and her voice is soft, so soft, but she is the queen, and her word is law as much as Arthur’s is. Even now, he can see scribes at the corner of his eyes twitching feathered pens and smearing ink.

Merlin only looks down. Grief radiates from him, but it is an old grief. Some part of Merlin was forever lost when the last of the dragons fell, and although he laughs and smiles like the rest of them, a greater part of him is as old as the magic that courses through his veins. In a way, he has already lost Galahad, as he has lost Arthur and Guinevere and Gaius and his mother and his childhood friend and his dragons. In a way, he is already resigned. In a way, he is already mourning.

“You swore to give him anything, my king,” is all Merlin says quietly.

Arthur takes a deep breath. Holds it. Releases it.

Galahad does not speak. He has said all he can and all he will. Anything more would be to waste the sweet, sweet air of free will – what little he has left in this life, anyways. Already he feels the cold creeping into his toes and fingers.

Finally, Arthur raises his head, and his eyes are _blazing_ , as red-hot as the dragon of his surname. “We will never forget you,” he says, and this is not the royal we of Guinevere’s declaration. This is Arthur Pendragon, as he was when he was just the prince – not even the crown prince, yet – and Galahad just another knight. This is Arthur Pendragon of old, when everything was at once much simpler and much more complex. This is Arthur, the man Galahad loves so much that even the fear and horror of the looming Darkness cannot taint that bond.

He swore to die for this man. Now he will live up to that.

One step brings him away from Arthur, and he is grateful beyond words for how Merlin and Guinevere immediately flank his king, to support and to hold back. Another step brings him onto the chair, where he surveys his fellow knights one last time and is honored by their inclined heads and brimming eyes. One final step brings him onto the table, where he stands cold and alone before the terrible fate of death.

“Well,” he announces, spreading his arms wide, “here I am. Your move.”

The Darkness hesitates, just once.

It is the last time it ever hesitates.

* * *

When the Darkness takes Galahad, all of the lights – even Merlin’s last, tiny flickering flame – go out. After all, Merlin’s magic comes from the earth and the land and the passage of time itself, but the Darkness is older even than those. The Darkness came from the void before time or land or magic, and it consumes all in its path.

The possession is all-consuming. One moment, Galahad stands before them, a man afraid and courageous, and the next he is swallowed by tendrils of shadow and dust.

Many knights and nobles look away. Galahad was well-loved and much-admired, for the strength of his spirit and the bawdiness of his jokes, and to many it is an up-close and personal death they had hoped to only ever hear about on a distant battlefield. As the Darkness crackles, even Arthur and Guinevere must shadow their eyes or risk going blind forever.

Merlin does no such thing.

He is not protected, per se, for the Darkness is older than him. But the danger of looking straight into the Darkness is that many are not prepared for what looks _back_ , and more than a few have gone mad for trying.

Merlin, however, has long since made peace with the darkness that grows inside him. He has done horrible, awful, soul-crushing things in the name of peace and magic and Arthur, and he would do them all again in a heartbeat, and it is that knowledge and that acceptance that allows him to withstand what to anyone else would be all-encompassing and crushing knowledge of all the darkness the world has to offer.

So it is Merlin and Merlin alone who watches, even as Galahad the man becomes Galahad the Darkness, as each piece of armor melts and drips away in clinks and plinks, as skin grows smooth and scratchy and cracked, as his heart turns molten and pours from his mouth to flow into a dagger cold as ice and as hard as diamond. The tears and the screams come then, and the dagger hisses at each tear and strengthens at each scream, forged anew between the quenching of the tears and the hammering of the screams until it is stronger than anything else in the world and more binding than all the blood magic that could ever be performed.

_Good-bye, Galahad,_ Merlin murmurs, in words older than language, just the Darkness surges forward.

When it clears, the torches flicker weakly back into being. The knights shake their heads, confused and still on edge, even as Arthur puts one hand on Excalibur, but all that remains is one man clad in leathers of dragon skin and a cape of fairy wings, kneeling with both hands clenched upon the dagger. If they had not just seen the Darkness consume them, he might even pass as normal.

That is, of course, until he opens his eyes, and Merlin stiffens because whilst one eye is the warm brown of Galahad’s former life, the other is cat-shaped and bright gold.

If he didn’t know better, he would call it a dragon eye.

“Hello, Arthur Pendragon,” says the Darkness. “I am the Dark One.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: "A Good Man"! Featuring dreams, death, and Holy Grail shenanigans.


	2. A Good Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A good man finds the Holy Grail.

Once upon a time, the High King Arthur Pendragon was a good man.

* * *

Being the Dark One – capital letters and all – is not quite what Galahad imagined. Certainly there is a lot more fear in people’s eyes when he walks around, but walking around in Pendragon regalia is generally enough to do that too. There is also certainly the shock the first time he looks into a mirror and sees his raggedy hair and mismatching eyes, but Galahad dedicates a good hour with some high quality grooming tools and finds that he can put it mostly back to rights. And, of course, there is certainly the annoyance of sudden little outbursts of magic – objects shattering, doors opening, clothes leaping into the air – but it’s nothing Galahad hasn’t pretended not to see around Merlin, so he quickly grows used to it.

Actually, by far the most irritating thing about being the Dark One is that he cannot actually shed the cloak.

When he asks, Merlin just shrugs. “You are the first human host it has ever known,” is all he can say, after several glares of golden eyes have done nothing but ruffle Galahad’s already horrendous hair style. “Perhaps it feels dramatic.”

“I do not feel dramatic.”

“You are not just Galahad anymore,” Merlin reminds him. “You are the host to the Darkness.”

Merlin’s tone is, annoyingly, very knowing as he says this. It makes sense, of course; Merlin himself has played host to many things old as time with instincts far removed from man. But Galahad doesn’t think Merlin is talking merely about the instinct to loom instead of back off politely or the magic that opens doors for him to sweep through like a demented carpet of cloak and leather.

Being the Dark One, surprisingly or unsurprisingly, also comes with _dreams_ , and the worst part is that he can’t make any sense of them, try as he might.

However, there is no way Galahad is going to admit that he’s given up on Merlin’s awful sleep potions, so instead he clears his throat and goes on the attack. “Did magic ever give you dreams, Merlin?”

“Always,” Merlin answers instantly, not even faltering as he pries apart little sticks with the ease of long practice. “Magic does not follow time in the same fashion as we humans experience it. The past, the present, the future – they’re all one and the same, in the end. I used to have so many dreams, and my biggest problem was trying to figure out if they were potential futures or potential pasts.”

It is the answer Galahad was expecting, even if it’s not the one he hoped for.

“Have the dreams begun to plague you as well, oh Dark One?”

“No,” Galahad denies automatically.

Merlin just hums. Bastard. It’s not like he didn’t keep many, many secrets of his own, back when everything was. Well. Merlin’s magic is a badly kept secret now, but it was far worse back then, with everyone pretending that no one else knew while the most important person actually did not know.

Besides, there is no way that Galahad is going to confess that he too can’t even tell if he’s viewing potential pasts or potential futures. 

Some are easy to figure out. That one dream he had of him putting an arrow straight into Arthur’s head, a heavy gold purse in his pocket and a quick horse hobbled nearby? Definitely a possible path a younger Galahad might have taken. That other dream of him riding a dragon with a sword of burning flame and an enormous ocean filled with flames? A potential future, likely to never happen now with the dragons long gone. And that dream of tapping his boots and shooting little poisonous blades out of them while doing somersaults in the air? Most certainly Galahad’s mind going awry without any influence from the Darkness.

However, there are some dreams Galahad has no idea about.

There’s one dream where he stands in a little building of stone and sand and arranges flowers all day long in arrangements and bouquets that he sells to increasing disinterested patrons, all of whom pay with little hard rectangles. Galahad can’t imagine being at all satisfied in a life without a sword in his hand and Arthur at his side, but he also concedes that an eternity of battle might make him inclined to quieter pursuits.

There’s another dream where he is a king who wear no crown and bears no sword and can hardly get a full sentence out without pausing or stumbling. Galahad can’t imagine being king, for that is a burden he will happily leave to Arthur, but in a future with no swords or armor perhaps anyone might be king.

And there is one more dream, which he remembers mostly because it happens at least once a fortnight. He is standing outside of another building of stone and sand, and he is staring at a world of more stone and grey castles, and he is waiting. No matter how many times he has had this dream, Galahad always forgets why he is waiting, until _he_ walks by, with atrocious manners and defensive rounded shoulders and clothes that Galahad cannot make heads or tails of. And he has never seen this man in his life, but quite suddenly he is all that matters, even if Galahad uses everything in his power not to show it. And every time Galahad wakes, the dream fades until he can remember nothing except the bite of the wind and the taste of smoke, because the man evaporates into nothingness the second Galahad attempts to remember him.

“If you need help or – or someone to talk to,” Merlin says awkwardly, and it sits so strangely on him, this court sorcerer of enormous power who never flinches in public, “I am here for you.”

“You are my brother, and I am glad to know you,” Galahad replies. “But I think we both know that these dreams are my burden alone, just as your dreams were yours.” When Merlin starts to protest, Galahad merely says, “And how many times have you dreamed of our king’s death, Merlin?”

It’s a low blow, but it works; Merlin immediately averts his eyes and his hands tremble.

For all that Arthur and Merlin have fought and argued and spent weeks on end alternately ignoring and trailing after each other like lost little puppies, they are bound as close as two souls can be. Even the Galahad-that-was knew this, on the same subconscious level that everyone does, watching Arthur watch Merlin and watching Merlin watch Arthur. 

Now, as the Dark One, it’s a palpable sheen in the atmosphere, a color that shades the world and leaves his tongue stinging with the taste of ozone. To look at Merlin, after all, is to see the roiling mass of magic that matches the roiling darkness inside him – except whereas Galahad’s is stopped only by the sharp point of a dagger, Merlin’s is bound by a million unbreakable threads, each with Arthur’s song woven inside. The Darkness will always fight to be free, but Merlin never will; he has become chained of his own free will, and his chains are all the stronger for it.

“It is getting closer,” Merlin murmurs. “Each day Arthur grows older, I see it hovering behind his shoulder.”

“I thought death was my domain, not yours.”

Merlin smiles, and it’s not a happy one. They both know Merlin’s destiny now, and they both know that it is their fate to outlive everything and everyone they have ever loved. “Arthur is my king,” he says simply. “His life and his death are mine.”

It’s a fair argument to make. Even though Galahad now possesses enough of his own magic to challenge Merlin without it being an automatic loss, he instinctively avoids Merlin-and-Arthur, because he knows that there are some things laid out in the very fabric of the universe, and to pick at one thread would be to unravel an entire section of the tapestry. The Dark One enjoys causing mischief, but he also enjoys being able to live on this earth even more.

Still. The reminder of Arthur’s future death serves one purpose at least.

The Darkness inside him squirms and squeals; Galahad pushes it down long enough to speak. He gave up his body as a host, true – but he is still the host, and this is still his body. He just shares it now. 

“If. When. When Arthur passes . . . you will take up the Dagger?”

The Dagger, Merlin had explained after a night of researching or communing with nature or whatever he does when he stomps off into the night and returns with flushed cheeks and wild eyes, is the key to the Dark One. Whoever holds the Dagger controls the Dark One, and whoever kills the current Dark One with it has the potential to become the next one. 

_“Potential?” Guinevere had said, raising an eyebrow. “I was under the impression it swallowed whatsoever and whomsoever it chose, when it was hungry._

_“Galahad might be the first Dark One, but I’ll wager the Darkness will fight to keep him if it feels the next potential host is unworthy of the power. There are not many better men than our Galahad.”_

_“But I am not,” Galahad had interrupted, “your Galahad. Not anymore.”_

_Arthur had laid one heavy hand on the Dagger, and even from ten paces away Galahad had shivered. It was ridiculous to assign feelings to darkness made flesh, but it was true; even now, it whispered and shivered and trembled beneath the grip of the High King, calling and calling and calling._

“If that is your desire,” Merlin says, after a long, troubled moment. 

It is a difficult request, but Galahad must make it. He cannot roam uncontrolled when he is so new to this kind of power, and if Arthur has passed, then that leaves very few who would likely still be alive that Galahad could entrust the reins of his life to.

“Then we are agreed,” Galahad says, and that is all.

* * *

Or, at least, it would have been.

* * *

Then comes Lancelot – sweet, brave, fallen Lancelot – and Guinevere is many things but a sorceress is not one of them, and the stench of crumbling futures is so strong around them all that Galahad fails to realize that it is not him imagining it, but rather the beginning of the end.

When Arthur finds them, he forgets that he is king, that he is the leader of the knights, that he is Lancelot’s liege lord – he forgets everything, and he _attacks_.

Worse still, for the first time, Excalibur refuses to work for him, for Excalibur was meant for the courageous and the strong, and in that moment, that raw moment where Arthur was less a man than a monster, Excalibur saw weakness and fear, and she resisted, sinking deep into the stone of the floor like a knife through butter, and an enraged Arthur resorted to fists and shouts and kicks.

It is over by nightfall.

Guinevere stands before them, chin strong and eyes fierce, but she does not speak. She does not need to. They all know Arthur is beyond reason now. Even Merlin can only argue for clemency and banishment, as opposed to even attempting to explain away the shadow-magic that fuelled the shade of the long-dead Lancelot and swept up Guinevere in the torrent.

Galahad doesn’t even bother to attempt. Arthur may not understand it, but somewhere deep down he recognizes the lightning smell of dark magic that lingers on Lancelot’s shade and upon Galahad, and so he, for the first time, grips the Dagger and commands silence, and the Dark One and Galahad are silent.

“I am Arthur Pendragon, High King of Albion and Lord of Camelot,” Arthur says, regal and fierce. “And I hereby declare you, Guinevere of Camelot, banished under the pain of death.” It’s quite the show, for an essentially empty court lit only by torches and a waning moon.

Galahad understands though. All Arthur has left right now is formality, after his greatest break with it was found dallying with his greatest knight.

And so Guinevere leaves as she came, empty-handed and proud and alone.

She never returns, and neither does Galahad’s voice.

* * *

Of course, not everyone agrees with Arthur’s decisions or his actions. Some knights chose retirement to distant estates in a mild rebuke of Arthur’s declaration, whilst some of the servants seek similar assignments far afield. “Lancelot’s” death, in which his animated shade falls lifeless with its mission now achieved, stinks of sorcery, and many are sympathetic to the young Queen who was, once upon a time, one of them.

It does not help with Arthur’s mood.

“Is this to be my legacy?” he says, bitter and slurring, head bowed from the weight of the crown he hardly removes now. “A court broken by a – a – by _her_.”

If Galahad was still Galahad, he would have stolen the crown and dragged Arthur out kicking and screaming for a good long hunt in the woods, complete with some sparring until they were so tired they couldn’t move and possibly a good crying session or two that Galahad would pretend not see whilst gathering wood or food.

Instead, the Dark One senses opportunity to be free, for a man burdened by regret is far easier to manipulate than one with the weight of responsibility on his shoulders, and the Dark One whispers, “You have only started your legacy, my king. You need only complete it.”

Arthur’s eyes are red as his cloak when he looks up. “With what? What is left? I have – I have reinstated magic, I have united the land, I have _married for love_. What is left?”

There are many answers, of course. Designating a proper heir, now that Guinevere and any potential child are gone, would be a good start.

But the Dark One does not want an heir. The Dark One wants a man, gullible and foolish and blinded with regret.

“There is a legend,” the Dark One says, slowly and haltingly, mimicking the speech pattern of the host that sleeps now, smothered into compliancy by the darkness that plagues the king who holds the Dagger, “of a Holy Grail. Perhaps you have come across it in your travels, my king. With one sip, you can be made . . . immortal, invincible, almighty.”

Arthur looks at the grail he already holds, and then back up. His brows crease. Even with so much wine in him that many others would have long since fainted, Arthur is not so easily trapped. 

It’s to be expected. Merlin has had many, many years to sink his protections into Arthur’s skin.

“Merlin says that my destiny is to come again, when Albion’s need is greatest.”

“With all due respect . . . is _this_ Albion’s greatest time of need?” the Dark One points out. “Judging disputes over grain and sheep, hosting balls of preening youths and traveling showmen, handing out laurels and crowns to knights who squabble in make believe fights? You have won us a great kingdom, my king, but who would you trust to lead it while you are strolling to death’s door? You would build this great kingdom for another? And for another to ruin, at that, if you ever intend to come back? You are the – ”

“High King, yes, I know,” Arthur interrupts irritably. “I hear it every day from my counselors, I don’t need to hear it from you too.”

The Dark One closes his mouth. It is not exactly voluntary.

Arthur sighs. “Just – enough. For tonight.”

The Dark One bows and leaves. For a prize such as this king, the best plans are laid down slowly and carefully. One does not simply toss around golden seeds expecting trees laden with golden apples to hatch, after all. One builds a very specific sort of garden, and then tends to it faithfully day and night for many weeks in order to see a single sprout, never mind the months and years until the first fruit ripens.

The Dark One would know. He planted one once, a very long time ago, just to see what it was like to create instead of destroy.

The urge did not last long, and neither did the garden.

* * *

Then, of course, comes Morgana, because now at the end of Arthur’s time is when all the momentous occasions start happening, and she doesn’t get far but she does get far enough.

“Galahad?” she wheezes, face contorted in pain from where she’s pressed so hard against the wall two of her ribs have given way.

The Dark One lets his eyes glow, just for a moment, but from the way she shrinks back he knows immediately that she has seen, even if only for one single second, a glimpse of his true self. For although her eyes and Merlin’s glow gold, his merely turn darker, until the rest of the room glows in comparison.

“Galahad no longer exists,” the Dark One says, and breaks her leg for good measure. He is about to strike the final blow when – 

“Enough!”

The Dark One stops. He has no choice, for although he has lived far longer than Merlin ever will, even he must bow to the wishes of the Dagger’s wielder, and Merlin is no confused, drunken king. Merlin is Emrys, fierce and unshakeable, and there is no hesitation as he clutches at the dagger and stops the Dark One.

“She is a danger to us all,” the Dark One hisses. Even if he wants nothing more than to be free to play around in Arthur’s mind, he acknowledges the risk of a High Priestess alive and hell-bent on killing said king.

“She is Arthur’s sister.”

“She would kill you, were our positions reversed.”

Merlin’s eyes burn golden; clearly the shields he placed around Arthur are taking a beating. “We are better than her.”

The Dark One smiles, because Galahad was willing to turn a blind eye to Merlin’s doings, but the Dark One sees past that sweet smile and ducking of the head. Even as Merlin, the manservant who tripped over rugs and stuttered over reminders, the man was loyal above all else, and loyalty can be more dangerous than anything else.

“Are we,” the Dark One murmurs. “Are we, Emrys?”

Merlin flinches.

The battle is won, but even though Morgana escapes with her life mostly intact, the Dark One relishes that one, tiny crack in the armor of the great Emrys – for with that one tiny crack, the Dark One can unleash a flood.

* * *

The battle of Camlann is anticlimactic.

At least, to the Dark One it is. He’s practically yawning as he tosses away enemies and rips apart enemy sorcerers. It is child’s play, and boring at that. The Dark One has seen thousands of battles and killed millions of enemies. Not to mention that with both Merlin’s magic woven into Arthur’s very skin and armor and the Dark One’s spells to slow and weaken enemies who get too close, Arthur emerges essentially unscathed.

Physically, anyways.

Emotionally . . . well, that’s another story altogether.

The Dark One finds Arthur scrabbling over the cooling body of Emrys. His eyes are burnt golden through and through, but they are pale; clearly he put all of his might into _something_ , and the corpse of Morgana not too far away makes it easy to guess what happened.

“No, no, no,” Arthur is muttering, frantic as he searches for the wound he won’t find. Magic like the kind Morgana wields leaves no traces upon its victims. “No, Merlin, don’t you dare, come back!”

Galahad would have stood guard and warded off curious stares. He would have held vigil for his king and his friend, and he would have mourned, and he would have remained silent under the burden of his own grief. He would have been a knight and a friend first, and a tactician and realist later.

The Dark One is none of those things.

“He is dead, Arthur.”

“You said he was immortal!”

“Yes. He was.” The Dark One clucks his tongue, because he feels, distantly, the grief Galahad feels, but for all the magic they shared Emrys was never his kin, not really, and with his death things will become much easier. “That does not mean invincible, and you and I both know he would have died a thousand times over to spare you.”

“He shouldn’t have,” Arthur says, as though he didn’t refuse to speak to Merlin for two months after the revelation of Merlin’s magic.

The Dark One tilts his face to the sky. He can already feel the death of Emrys spreading across the land. The air is heavier now, and the earth groans, and the waters go still. Magic has lost its greatest host, and all for a king who still has to work to contain his instinctive flinch against golden eyes and whispered words. “Come, my king. We have work to do.”

* * *

After the battle, negotiating for peace is easy. Everyone is weary of war, and with so many sorcerers and knights dead it becomes hard to argue that anyone is stronger than the other. There is no joy in the victory, for all of court follows the king’s lead, and with the loss of his queen, his greatest knight, and now his sorcerer, there is the sense, perhaps, that Arthur has had one loss too many.

The Dark One believes it.

After all, it only takes one night before Arthur comes to him and says, quite calmly, “Tell me of this Grail."

* * *

It’s Galahad, actually, who locates the Holy Grail, and not the Dark One. Mostly this is due to the fact that the Grail repels dark magic, and to be immortal and to attempt to use the Grail ends only in failure. When Galahad’s hand closes around the cup, it’s the first time that the Dark One’s control has retreated in _years_.

Galahad looks up, and sees a world ending.

There are knights – brave, good, young men – dying all around him, torn apart by the magical defenses around the Grail and felled by those attempting to take advantage of the first successful breach into the chamber where the Grail has rested for thousands of years. They are dying, and yet Galahad cannot move to their defense. He can’t even touch his sword.

“Arthur!” he snaps, and the word _moves_ , through time and space until it curls into his king’s ear, and Galahad has never used magic before but he knows instinctively that this is it.

“You haven’t called me that in a long time,” Arthur says, stroking the Dagger. “Did you find it?”

Galahad tries to release the Grail, in case it is the reason he cannot move off the platform to aid the men who are groaning and screaming and dying in front of him. Instead, his fingers clench even tighter around the Grail against his will, and his feet are planted so strongly in place it’s like he has roots instead of toes.

“Yes, I found it! Now let me help!”

“Hmm. No.”

Galahad is trying to move even before the word leaves Arthur’s lips, and he’s so taken aback that it takes him an awful ten seconds to realize that Arthur – for the first time in the many, many, many years they have known each other – is stopping him from helping those who need it. “Arthur.”

“Bring the Grail home, Galahad,” Arthur orders. “Your mission – and their sacrifice – is meaningless if you help them and fail to bring home the Grail. You can save them later.”

Galahad throws himself forward, but it is of no use; the Dagger binds him down to the very depths of his soul, and he cannot disobey. “Damn you, let me help, Arthur! I can save them and the Grail!”

“I can’t take that risk. Come. Home.”

Galahad goes home.

When he returns, sword drawn and fire crackling in his fist, it is too late. The men are all dead.

Arthur hardly notices. He drinks from the Grail and finds himself restored, and immediately his first thoughts are to the invading Saxons. It sickens Galahad, and the emotion is so strong that the Dark One stays buried deep inside, so deep and so long that Galahad has time to dig out bracelets of cold iron – fashioned so long ago by Merlin, before the Dark One demonstrated control of his magic – to wrap around his wrists and hold the Darkness at bay. He even manages to wrangle a promise out of a cheerful Arthur to set the Dagger aside, as he has proved his loyalty as the Dark One and as Galahad.

For the first time, Galahad does not attend the celebratory feast.

* * *

Once upon a time, the High King Arthur Pendragon was a good man.

And in the beginning, he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: "An Honorable Man"! Featuring Lee, Michelle, and Excalibur shenanigans.


	3. An Honorable Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An honorable man meets his true love.

Once upon a time, the High King Arthur Pendragon was an honorable man.

* * *

Eventually, even Albion falls. It is not the dramatic, glorious explosion of a kingdom defended to the last, but rather the slow erosion of time and faith. There are always more young men eager to join the Round Table, but Arthur shows less and less appreciation and interest until the table is filled with the same clotpoles of money and little else that he once so ruthlessly culled from his court. And the Grail bestows immortality, true, but immortal youth was never quite part of the bargain, and so despite all the magic Merlin and the Dark One once poured into him, he ages slowly until, finally, he agrees to allow the dissolution of Camelot and Albion.

It is a rough night.

Galahad draws upon the magic of the Dark One at his king’s command and shrouds Camelot in mists, the same way Avalon is protected, so that even though it fades into legend, it will not be desecrated. He is reluctant to provoke the Dark One taking control, but he agrees because he understands.

This is Arthur’s birthplace, after all. His kingdom, where he once ruled all of Albion with his beloved and his sorcerer at his side.

They take with them only three things: Excalibur, the Grail, and the crown, even if Galahad argues heavily against the second. After several days and nights, because it’s Galahad speaking, and not the Dark One, he eventually manages to convince Arthur to let him store the Grail in a safe space so that no one else can cause problems by attempting to become immortal. 

Galahad has only been to the Lake of Avalon once. Merlin brought him, once long ago when the Darkness was still settling into him, as an attempt to prepare for the worst.

“This is where our king will be laid to rest?” Galahad had said, raising an eyebrow at the seemingly tiny lake with an even tinier island in the middle. “I could skip a stone across the rocks and hit the island with one throw.”

Merlin had smiled and extended his hand, and the waters had burned golden. “Appearances can be deceiving,” he had replied, and then Galahad had nearly fallen over in shock with a woman with dark hair and smiling eyes had emerged from the depths of the lake, stepping lightly on the waves as though they were stones and she lighter than air. “Meet the Lady of the Lake.”

“Welcome, Galahad,” the Lady had said, sliding to a smooth stop at the water’s edge. “Welcome home.”

And the Dark One – the Dark One had _erupted_.

“This is not my home,” Galahad had snarled, and then covered his own mouth in shock at words that were not his emerging unbidden from his throat.

The Lady had merely smiled. “We call all of our kin home to rest. We never forget our own.”

“Forget me. You have already buried me.”

“In preparation for your return. As has been prophesied.”

Galahad had laughed at that. Even Merlin had had no idea about the true nature of the Dark One, not really, and what kind of prophecy would ever be uttered about the Darkness that consumed all in its path?

The Lady had merely said, “There can be no light without the darkness.” Then she had dissolved into sea foam and raindrops, and Galahad had been left gasping and trembling as the Dark One reluctantly retreated back into the depths of his belly, grumbling and twitching like a cat confined to a tiny box. It had been distinctly unsettling, and not just because it was the first time the Dark One had retreated without Galahad or Merlin or Arthur forcing it back with words, magic, and the Dagger.

Now, Galahad follows that sense of unease back to the source, for there is only one place that has ever unnerved the Dark One, and with each step closer, the Dark One retreats even more, until its voice is only the faintest murmur in the depths of Galahad’s mind.

This time, the second he sets foot on the shores and the first waves brush against his foot, the Grail glows and the waters erupt.

“Galahad,” the Lady says as she emerges less like the gentle glide of before and more like a guardian coming alive at the presence of a threat, and she is frowning so much that the lake itself reflects her unease, growing dark and cloudy like a rainstorm in the distance. “Why have you come here.”

It is not a question.

Galahad opens his hand, and the Grail falls into the water. “I need a place to keep this safe. From the world of men, at least.” _And from Arthur,_ he does not say.

From the way the Lady looks at him, he knows he does not have to.

The Grail floats gently towards the Lady as the storm clouds dissipate. The Lady picks it up, but gently, as one would pick up a child rather than a cup of burnished gold and set with priceless jewels. Or, rather, _had_ been set with priceless jewels. In the waters of Avalon, all truths are revealed and all lies washed away, and the jewels fall away one by one as the Lady inspects the Grail, until all that is left is a plain wooden cup, carved smooth by loving hands and gleaming only due to the countless spells worked into its construction.

“Why?”

“I know the rules. Merlin was meant to be the immortal one, not Arthur.”

The Lady blinks solemnly. “Destiny is a complex thing. It moves and breathes and changes just as life itself does.”

“Still. One immortal king is . . . perhaps more than enough.”

“Immortality for mortal men is not the same as it is for one of our kin.”

“If you can look me in the eye,” Galahad counters, “and tell me that Arthur is not of our kin, then I will believe you.”

The Lady opens her mouth. Stops. Closes her eyes and breathes, because the Lady of the Lake is many things, but a liar is not one of them. If there is one thing that sorcerers and the Fae have in common, it is that lies are told in omission and implications and never in actual words, and to deny that Arthur has Fae blood in his veins would be like denying that he was a king at all.

“On behalf of my kindred,” she says eventually, “I thank you for the return of the Grail. Now. What do you want, Galahad?”

“Nothing. I merely came to bring that back. Now our business is concluded.”

“Oh, Galahad,” the Lady says, the Grail gleaming in her hands, “our business is just begun.”

* * *

Thankfully, Arthur does not lose all common sense, even as the ages creep by. Perhaps it is his once great distrust of magic that keeps him sharp, for he understands the need to blend into the shadows and not come charging out with his full royal title whenever he is confronted. He even, after several centuries of arguments, agrees to store Excalibur in a chest or display it as an heirloom, as opposed to constantly wearing it at his waist as though he might be called to battle at any moment.

It is an admirable trait in a king, but a not so admirable trait in a man pretending to be a lowly noble.

Still, keeping the man from joining every new war is a headache in its own right.

“Now is not Albion’s greatest time of need!” Galahad hisses, when what will later be called the Hundred Years’ War rages and Arthur nearly pulls out his old set of armor.

“Now is not Albion’s greatest time of need!” he says, when the War of the Roses leaves Arthur threatening to take back his old throne and leave the others in the dust.

“Now is not Albion’s greatest time of need!” he says, when Queen Anne’s war sees a war fought on multiple fronts in a way that has Arthur itching to add his military opinions.

“Now is not Albion’s greatest time of need!” he says, when the colonies declare independence and Arthur muses about spreading Albion across the sea.

“Now is not Albion’s greatest time of need!” he says, when the War of 1812 erupts and Arthur has a fit over wars that end in stalemates.

“Now is not Albion’s greatest time of need!” he says, when the Great War spreads across the world and starts to swallow up entire swathes of countries in its wake and Arthur, for the first time, goes for his gun over Excalibur.

By the time they get to World War II, Arthur is an old, grumpy, bitter man, and Galahad doesn’t even need to open his mouth for his king to say, “Fine!” and stomp upstairs like the pouting teenager he had once been. Galahad does not follow; he too is weary of war. War and battles and bloodshed had lost their appeal ages ago, back when they were both mortal, but after so many, many wars, nowadays Arthur really only still insists in revealing himself to be stubborn and provoke an argument. They both know the world is far more complicated than it once was, and that claiming the name of King Arthur is fraught with problems that go beyond just proving that he’s real and not a myth.

Arthur takes comfort in taking Excalibur out and decimating practice dummies.

Galahad goes to the Lake of Avalon.

“Galahad,” the Lady says. He visits infrequently, because leaving Arthur alone is just asking for problems, but when everyone is immortal, infrequently over thousands of years still breeds some familiarity. 

“Freya,” Galahad replies, lying down in the cool waters. After so many years, he finds it comforting to be cradled in the lake’s waters, even if they don’t heal him as they would others. It’s still a balm to his senses to be surrounded by such pure and good magic. “It’s over.”

“Yes. I know. The world breathes a sigh of relief when humans stop the engines of war.”

Galahad closes his eyes. They both do not sound enthusiastic. “The toll is . . . beyond comprehension. There are so many dead.” He can’t help but feel it; the Dark One feeds on pain and death and blood, and after so many years of war, the earth and the water and the air are fairly saturated in everything that makes him strong, repellant as they are to the Galahad-that-was.

Freya sighs. “I feel it too. So many of our kind have fallen or left. The world grows colder. Emptier. Magic is leaving us.”

“Magic left with Emrys.”

“Emrys never left us.”

Galahad sits bolt upright. They had given Merlin a knight’s funeral after the battle, full honor with flames burning and swords drawn and flags rippling in the wind. He had died, truly and completely died, Galahad had felt his pulse weaken and fade and the Dark One had sensed the supernova of magic that masqueraded as his heart dissipate and leave – 

“So long as the memory of Camelot and Avalon live on,” Freya continues, “so does magic. It will never truly leave, I think. And so neither will Emrys.”

“You. You speak of. Reincarnation?”

“We do not call it that.”

“Your language has not been spoken since before the prophecy of Emrys existed.”

“Very well. Emrys never truly died, in any case, so I am not sure this . . . reincarnation you speak of is true. So long as magic lives, Emrys lives, and as Albion’s time of need draws closer, he grows ever stronger. The Round Table is beginning to assemble.”

And it’s true that Galahad has met other members of the Round Table over the eons, but he never thought anything of it. Kay was a rather flamboyant Spartan, Gwaine an often drunk but loquacious fur trader, Percival a studious judge, but they were all so far apart and so beyond recognizing either Galahad or Arthur that he had nothing of it besides coincidence. Apparently he should have been thinking more about it.

Still. It doesn’t all bode well.

“And what of Uther and Ygraine? Agravaine and Cenred? Sigan and Morgause? You cannot tell me reincarnation means happy endings for all.”

“If I told you otherwise, could you stop it?”

Galahad looks into the waters. He knows exactly what she means. _If I told you otherwise, would you stop it, Dark One?_ And the answer is . . . he doesn’t know. He has missed the comradery of his brothers-in-arms, the laughter of a full castle, and security in knowing exactly who has his back and what he fights for. But so many of those fights were against enemies Galahad no longer wishes to battle, as much for their sake as his. 

As a mere knight, after all, Galahad was only tossed into walls.

As the Dark One, he might destroy entire cities.

“I miss Merlin,” he answers instead. “I miss Lancelot. I miss Percival. I miss Guinevere. I miss Camelot.”

Freya puts one cool hand on his shoulder, and Galahad flinches. In all the ages past, they have never touched, for he has always known it would be unwise to touch someone who lingers just between life and death. Yet she feels reassuringly solid, if far too cold to pass as human anymore.

“Camelot’s time will come,” she says, as she always has. “Perhaps sooner rather than later. But go, Galahad. Your king calls for you.”

* * *

Time moves differently between the real world and the Lake of Avalon. Still, for however short of a time he’s spent talking to Freya, it’s still too long, for when Galahad gets back, he finds Arthur sitting at the table, back straight and arms braced on the table and eyes brighter than he’s seen in three hundred years.

“My king,” Galahad says warily.

“Galahad,” Arthur returns. “I have a plan to let the Round Table live again.”

“No.”

Arthur smiles and pats at the phone by his side. “My dear brother,” he says, “I was not asking you.”

* * *

And so Arthur becomes Chester King, and Galahad becomes Henry Hart, and the mansion they’ve hidden in for so long again becomes a castle filled with the sounds of workers moving in an ancient table, piece by piece, until at last the Round Table stands anew in the light.

* * *

The first to come, fittingly enough, is one who never sat at the table but earned a place regardless. Tristan comes, bold and eager as he ever was, and Arthur nearly breaks his long-held code of silence to welcome him when he finally passes the rudimentary tests they’ve put in place to test the candidates who will serve as the knights, the arms and ears and eyes of the court of gentlemen Arthur has gathered of fellow rich men who’ve lost so much and yet still have much more to give. Isolde comes with him this time, her face round and eyes brilliant with joy, and thus begins the tradition of swearing spouses to secrecy from the start and providing safe houses to protect families from retaliation. 

If Galahad visits in the night and spends hours laying down enchantments of protection and invisibility and luck, well, Arthur doesn’t mention it. Just as Galahad doesn’t mention the hefty portion of money Arthur carefully sets aside for Isolde in the inevitability of Tristan’s death.

Of course, now – the time they prepare, they watch, they wait and harden their hearts – now is the time that nothing happens.

Tristan is the only knight of his generation who lives to retirement. Isolde takes command of the administrative and support sections and together they turn the mansion in a true castle, bustling with support staff and servants alike to carry on the mission they have sworn to uphold, filling the mansion with booby traps and security measures far more extensive than anything Arthur or Galahad could have alone.

It is a good feeling.

Next comes Kay, rough around the edges but fierce as the explosions he so adores. He develops the weapons division into a fine-honed factory, exploring and experimenting and producing fantastical new designs one after another until their armory is probably better stocked than some small countries’. He dies during an undercover mission, and there are no ashes to bring home. Arthur grieves, that day, and thus begins the tradition of a final toast for each and every fallen knight.

Next comes Percival, silent and tall and broad. His silence unnerves his fellow candidates, and thus begins the tradition of adding in at least one challenge so extreme it causes everyone to either wet their pants, break, or show their true selves so that the Kingsman might know just who they are dealing with. Percival, trapped in a deep sea cave with half the oxygen he was told he would have, passes out, but he gets his fellow candidates to safety, and so he joins the table. He retires after a capture and extended interrogation leave his hands shaking constantly, but he stays on to assist with training.

Next comes Gwaine, who is dragged in half-conscious by a knight after he successfully pickpockets him. There is much grumbling when he joins the Table, but Arthur calmly pulls out enough genealogy charts to make even the hardiest of protestors give up, and so Gwaine becomes a knight as well. Long range is his forte, and so, as it turns out, is mentoring and training, for he spends a great deal of time amongst the candidates, playing pranks and giving advice in equal measure. Thus begins the tradition of each candidate having a mentor to advise and lean on, although it takes only a few more years more for that to turn into mentors proposing candidates instead.

Next comes Leon, much to Galahad’s relief. While he can age himself with magic, it’s unpleasant and difficult to maintain, and he takes the appearance of Arthur’s right hand as a signal that it’s time to retire. Leon, practical as ever, drags the Kingsman into the new century, updating the technology and successfully arguing for the need for continuing the cover businesses of the Kingsman tailors. Galahad bows out from the Kingsman and leaves Henry Hart behind, confident in Leon’s loyalty and practicality – and, of course, the multitude of spells Galahad leaves helps as well.

For the first time in ages, Galahad just . . . wanders. He drives or walks or rides from town to town, getting off and on whenever he feels like it. He eats whatever food he likes, he drinks whatever drinks he likes, he wears whatever clothes he likes. There has been no hint of activity on Avalon or for Merlin or for the High Priestesses, and Galahad thinks, for a moment, that if this is what Camelot’s return is to be, he would welcome it.

* * *

Then, of course, he runs into Guinevere.

* * *

Her name is Michelle, and her hair is blonde instead of brown, and she is a cashier at a corner store instead of a servant at a castle. Still, the second Galahad lays eyes on her, he knows, the same way he knew with Tristan and Kay and Percival and Gwaine and Leon. Even if he did not have magic, her soul shines through in her smile and her eyes; she is an old soul, and yet all the more beautiful and unbroken for it.

She is also married.

For that, Galahad _does_ stare.

“Um . . . have we, uh, met before?” asks the young man who Guinevere calls Lee, one arm thrown casually around her waist as Galahad’s stare dips into the five and then ten minute mark.

“You just – you look like someone I knew. Once,” Galahad says, and only barely keeps himself from adding “Lancelot.”

* * *

Freya, for not the first time in their long acquaintance, is rather unhelpful with advice.

“I did not know,” is all she says, frowning faintly. “I thought – I did not think Lancelot would come back from the void.”

Freya is the Lady of the Lake. Everything that happens near water, she knows of. Yet she is not lying; she had nearly called Galahad a liar instead, when he first came to her with a picture of Lancelot and Guinevere, dressed in modern clothing and smiling, a candid image Galahad had discretely transferred with magic to a clay tablet and carried by hand to the Lake. He hadn’t dared to save the photograph in the Kingsman files for any longer than that, and he is more thankful than ever that Arthur still avoids anything that bears the stench of magic out of long-held instinct.

Galahad swallows. The other knights were drawn to the Table instinctively, even if Arthur has refashioned it a thousand times over to look more elegant and less, well, round. Lee Unwin shows no inclination for spy work, but he is a military man, a man of honor and love and courage, and that is the motto of the Kingsman.

“You may have to let destiny run her course,” Freya says finally. “You may need Lancelot’s help, even if you do not wish to call upon him.”

“There’s nothing that could threaten Arthur.” Merlin is long gone, but Merlin loved Arthur with all his heart and soul, and if there’s anything that could power an enchantment to live on through the ages, it’s an emotion like love. That combined with Merlin’s incredible affinity for magic means that even now, the spells Merlin once inscribed onto Arthur’s armor and wove into the air around him are as strong as the day Merlin first laid them down.

“Except the Kingslayer.”

“That is a myth,” Galahad says automatically, because they had prophesied a Kingslayer back in the days of the first Camelot too, and that was one prophecy Galahad had been relieved to have seen stay unfulfilled. 

“All myths are rooted in truth. The High Priestesses are stirring; I can feel it. You may need Lancelot’s help.”

“I cannot – I cannot see him die. Not again.”

“Oh, Galahad,” Freya murmurs, “you may not have a choice.”

* * *

Arthur summons him, the next day, and the second Galahad emerges from the doorway to find a seat at the table Arthur has commandeered in the outdoor dining space of a nearby restaurant, Arthur immediately says, “I need you back, Galahad.”

Galahad raises an eyebrow. He didn’t think Arthur could age much more, but it appears even the few short years Galahad has been absent have been enough to carve deep wrinkles into Arthur’s forehead and turn his hair entirely white. “My king.”

“Don’t ‘my king’ me,” Arthur says impatiently. “I need my right hand back, Galahad. There are three empty seats at the Table and now is a good a time as any to make your return.”

“I was under the impression that Henry Hart had been . . . retired.”

“He was,” Arthur acknowledges, and slides a thick folder across the table, full of photographs and documents of identification. “And is it not wonderful that he left behind a grieving son of high moral fiber and military expertise?”

Galahad sighs. It is true that one day he knew Arthur would call him back into service, and he had chosen the Hart name as his to patronize for however many generations forward it would be, just as Arthur had chosen the King name. “Harry Hart,” Galahad reads from birth certificate. “Son of Henry Hart and Mithian – Arthur.”

“You always did like her.”

Liking her, Galahad wants to say, is a far cry from adopting her name as his mother, but Galahad has also learned to pick his battles, so instead, he merely frowns and continues flipping through the documents. 

Apparently, Harry Hart had been a rather rebellious child who’d eventually ended up in the tender arms of the RAMC. He had saved the life of a Kingsman agent who had kept his name in the archives ever seen, and now with three seats at the table empty, the Kingsman were bringing in as many candidates as possible to fill the vacancies. He is skilled at explosive weaponry, interrogation, and hand-to-hand combat, with hobbies ranging from cooking to sewing to collecting butterflies. And the worst part is that they’re not lies, not any of them; Galahad has been alive for so long that he’s tried virtually every hobby that exists, and these are some of the ones he actually liked.

There is just one small problem.

“Unless things have significantly changed,” Galahad says, “each candidate still must be proposed by a knight. Are you suggesting that you are going to propose a candidate yourself, my king?”

Arthur sniffs. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve made plans.”

“Leon, then.”

“Am I really that predictable?”

Galahad shrugs. Just because the King of the Round Table almost never proposes a candidate doesn’t mean he lacks for favorites or suggestions. There have been a few candidates that Galahad has proposed simply because Arthur, as Chester King, could not, and because Galahad honestly had no intention at the time of proposing anyone. Some succeeded, although Galahad made a point of ensuring that the truly obnoxious ones, no matter how blue-blooded, almost always found their way to the door and the anesthesia dart.

“Galahad,” Arthur says. “Please come home. I need you.”

And, well. How is Galahad going to refuse something like that?

* * *

So Galahad becomes Harry Hart, son of the late Henry Hart, and he competes for the title of Galahad simply because, as he tells the other candidates, he had nothing left to lose and everything to gain. Most of the others scoff; the Kingsman are a secret organization, of course, but with the work they do, others have noticed and whispers have spread. So many hope against hope to join.

The only one who agrees, funnily enough, is a serious boy with thick eye glasses and an even thicker Scottish accent. He calls himself M and refuses to divulge his true name no matter the teasing.

On their first night, the Kingsman agents lock the doors, seal the windows, turn off the showers and toilets, and unleash the powerful gas, and as the candidates run around trying to get out, M and Galahad end up working together to form a makeshift shelter, Galahad ends up brushing against M’s hand and. 

And.

_Oh,_ Galahad thinks faintly, staring at the now shockingly-familiar head of thick messy locks, _so this is where you’ve been hiding._

“Quit staring at my face and help me!” M snaps, and the last of Galahad’s doubt fades.

Merlin has returned.

* * *

Strangely enough, Arthur doesn’t recognize Merlin at all. Granted, he didn’t recognize Percival or Kay either, but as they were among the first and even Galahad hadn’t truly believed in the whole reincarnation thing back then, he had given Arthur a pass on it. 

This time, Arthur watches the entirety of Merlin’s training and doesn’t bat a single eyelid. There’s no gasp, no smile, no recognition at all.

Galahad wonders if maybe Arthur is growing too old. 

The powers of Dark One, after all, mean that he functions essentially the same as he did when he first merged with the Darkness. The magic protects him, shielding his body from aging and his mind from breaking under the stress of holding so many years of memories. And, of course, Galahad also has the advantage of magic recognizing kith and kin. Even after all these years, the Darkness remembers the light in Merlin, and it responds as it always has, although Merlin also shows no sign of recognition or magic, aside from his freakishly good talent at computers and innovation.

Arthur, however, has no such protection. The Grail only prolonged his life, and Arthur hasn’t even touched the Grail in a very long time. And Merlin never imagined that Arthur might be immortal instead of him; he cast no spells to protect the mind or the bones from weakening under years of stress. 

Galahad keeps his mouth shut though. Even though Arthur and Merlin reconciled, in the end, there was still bitterness there, bitterness and anger and questions unasked, and right now Merlin is no fit state to answer anymore than Arthur is to ask.

So they go through the training, bit by bit, as the candidate pool grows smaller and smaller, until one day M finally goes to the Table and interrupts a meeting to announce that he is stepping down and moving into the support staff under the quartermaster. When some knights object, M hacks into the main projector and starts cracking open case files sealed by the authority of Arthur himself. After that display, everyone is incredibly eager to keep M on under the guidance of the quartermaster.

To no one’s surprise, Galahad as Harry becomes the new Galahad in short order, while a handful of years after that, M under the quartermaster eventually becomes the Merlin, the assistant director of the technical and administrative divisions.

Arthur looks Merlin straight in the eyes as he welcomes Merlin officially to the Kingsman and does not recognize him.

And Galahad – Galahad, for the first time in so many ages since he stepped forward and volunteered to let the darkest force in the history of the world take his body and taint his soul – Galahad does something incredibly, undeniably, recklessly _stupid_.

“Who the bloody hell are you?” Lee Unwin snaps, jolted to full awareness by the sight of a random well dressed man sitting on his couch in the dark.

“My name is Harry Hart,” Galahad says. He does not mention the fact that Michelle has lost her job again, that they’ve had to downside and move to a smaller apartment in a less than favorable neighborhood, that Lee’s military career isn’t taking off quite as he thought it would and pays less than he thought. He does not mention that he’s spent the past decade or so keeping a careful eye on the Unwins. He doesn’t even mention the fact that Lee has had several run-ins with Kingsman agents and all have had nothing but positive things to say about him. 

Instead, he says, “I would like to offer you the chance at something greater.”

“Like what?”

“To become a Kingsman,” Galahad says, 

And Lee, because Lancelot never could resist doing the honorable thing, of course Lee says yes.

* * *

For a while, it works out well. The new Kingsman subsidiaries in addition to Lee’s regular paycheck mean that for once the Unwins aren’t struggling with money. If Galahad also arranges for a few side benefits that aren’t normally given to candidates, well – he’s had thousands of years to accumulate all types of currency, and it’s not like he needs it. Plus, Lee is on the older side for the candidates and the only married one, and most Knights are willing to make exceptions, given that they all understand the difficulties of maintaining a civilian cover as well as the fulfilling the responsibilities of the Kingsman. 

Of course, a wife is only half of it.

One day Lee comes stumbling in yawning and half-awake, and either he’s grown used to Galahad asking random questions or the power of the Round Table has done its work, because when Galahad asks what’s bothering him, Lee – instead of dodging the question or just smirking – answers him as though they were brothers in arms once more and just says, “Oh, it’s my son, he just had a rough night.”

To which Galahad replies, quite stupidly, “Son?”

Lee brightens up, even if he isn’t foolish enough to try and flash around a photo like most proud parents would. “Yeah, my boy, he’s wonderful. Just had a birthday, so he stayed up late to celebrate and of course now he’s cranky.”

Galahad promptly turns himself invisible and goes to spy on this son he didn’t know about.

And sure enough, there’s a tiny little boy in Michelle’s arms, alternately yawning and giggling as she dances around the kitchen singing in that lovely voice Galahad remembers so well. He’s the very picture of a miniature Lancelot, and Galahad’s heart aches because he’d never imagined a child, even after all the time the council had spent badgering Arthur for an heir. He wants to hold that boy, to kiss his forehead and tell him jokes about his parents and to cast the same kind of spells Merlin laid upon Arthur. He wants him to be safe and free and happy, the way none of the knights ever have been, not really.

He does manage at least one of those things, at least. Galahad teleports himself – something that actually took him quite a few decades to master without accidentally sending himself to places he didn’t mean to – into the nursery later that night and does cast a few rudimentary spells. Spells of deflection and protection and good health, nothing major. The boy is happy and healthy and has wonderful, loving parents; he really doesn’t need the protection of the Dark One.

* * *

Of course, that’s when destiny raises its ugly head again.

* * *

Arthur missed the first presentation of candidates. This in and of itself is not abnormal; the first presentation to the King is always subtle, and often the candidates don’t even know it’s happening, because Arthur is a hunter and he knows how to blend in with his surroundings. Plus, if he’s really anxious all he has to do is turn on one of the many hundreds of security cameras.

What it really means is that the first time Arthur comes face to face with Lee is after they pass the test of loyalty, wherein the candidates are slowly lowered in a pit of flesh eating piranhas if they don’t agree to give up names and other information.

Lee, of course, passes with flying colors and quite a few colorful curse words.

Arthur takes one look at Lee and his face turns red, and their only saving grace is that they are on their way out of the shop into public view and he cannot throw a fit with all the civilians lingering around.

And then –

“Michelle!” Lee says, delighted.

And suddenly Michelle is there, radiant in a beautiful lavender dress with gold-colored thread, and for a second she looks so much like Guinevere on the day she was crowned that Galahad’s breath catches. 

He’s not the only one.

“Guinevere,” Arthur whispers, and his face goes white as snow, and for a moment, Galahad sees him not as the white-haired old man he’s been for centuries, but as the golden-haired king he once pledged his life to serve with honor. It’s been a long, long, long time since Arthur looked like . . . well, King Arthur.

Michelle smiles, but it’s a small and uncertain smile. “Hello,” she says. “I, uh, actually go by Michelle now. I haven’t gone by Gwen in a long time. My middle name,” she explains, and her smile firms as Lee reaches her side and takes her hand to kiss like the gallant knight he once was.

Arthur blinks once, twice, thrice. 

Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite sink in until a small boy runs full tilt towards them, laughing, and Michelle snatches the child up with the ease of long practice. “Eggsy!” she scolds, but the joy in her voice is clear, and Lee tickles the child under the chin and kisses him fondly on the cheeks. What they are to each other is as undeniable as the gold rings on their fingers and the love on their faces, and Galahad watches with a sinking heart as Arthur’s face goes from white with shock to red with slow-swelling anger.

“My pardon, my lady,” Arthur says, voice too calm. “You just reminded me of someone I once knew, a long time ago.”

“I am certainly no lady, but thank you,” Michelle laughs, and then the family of three is off, a perfect picture of the perfect happy family.

“Galahad,” Arthur says immediately, and it is no longer with the gentle, mild voice of Chester King, a man of fortune who had never fought in war. It is the voice of a king who leads men into battle, sword in one hand and banner in another, and even though he does not have the dagger, Galahad bows his head and immediately follows.

For a long moment, there is only silence, as Arthur stares at Galahad, fists trembling.

And then:

“HOW DARE YOU?!” Arthur yells, and Galahad actually jerks because Arthur hasn’t raised his voice so loud since the day Merlin’s eyes went golden and stayed golden as he breathed his last on the battlefield.

“The Round Table is assembling,” Galahad says. “All of it.”

“YOU BROUGHT THAT TRAITOR TO MY HOUSE AND – ”

“If not me, then someone else,” Galahad interrupts coldly, because he’s tried many times to explain the nature of Lancelot’s previous resurrection and all softer attempts have failed. If there’s one thing good about being the Dark One, it is that the Dark One has no reason to lie and no reason to bow even to the High King; Galahad takes that strength, that defiance, that cruel and painful truth, and bends it to his will. “The Round Table is returning, Arthur. And as we grow stronger, so do our enemies. We will need everyone we can get to keep pace. Even you acknowledged the kind of knight Lancelot was before his death.”

Unfortunately, the years have hardened Arthur too. He is no longer just the High King of Albion, but Chester King, multimillionaire and founder of the Kingsman and leader of the Round Table. He too has learned not to bend to words, not matter how true or cruel they are.

“I will not knight him,” Arthur says.

“You,” Galahad replies, “will not get a choice. This is not the choice of one king anymore, Arthur; you saw to that. If the Table accepts him, Lee will join us.”

With that, Galahad inclines his head and turns to leave. He has nothing further to say, and whether or not Arthur will yield is up to Arthur. They both know that the Table will accept Lee, given his stellar performances, his test results, and his skills. Unless Lee does something dramatic, like get pissed at a pub and reveal his newfound secrets to the entire world, there is little Arthur can do to halt his journey to becoming a Knight.

And then Galahad stops dead in his tracks, because right now ice-cold fingers are wrapped around the base of his spine, and he can’t move a single muscle, and he hasn’t felt like this since – 

“No,” Arthur says quietly, and this time his steps are very soft and very deliberate as he comes around to face Galahad, the Dagger gleaming in his hand. “No, Lee will not. And you will see to it.”

“Arthur,” Galahad gasps, but Arthur doesn’t let him say another word.

“NO! I am Arthur Pendragon, High King of Albion and master of the Dagger and _you will obey me_.”

Each word is like a knife into his chest, his legs, his arms, his neck, his heart, until all Galahad can do is gasp and curl up on the floor like a child. He’s never tried to defy an order from the Dagger before, not really; even the last time when Arthur had ordered him to abandon the Knights, Galahad had convinced himself that he would return, that Arthur would let him return, that all would be well. Now there is no such escape, and he can only grieve as the Darkness swallows him whole once more.

Merlin gives him a weird look when they emerge, Arthur smug and Galahad silent. “Are you alright, Harry?” And Merlin never uses his real name, never, and Galahad aches to scream, to beg, to cry, anything to make Emrys wake again so that someone can save him.

Instead, he only says, “I’ve found a mission for the candidates.”

* * *

Galahad sees the bomb. Even if he hadn’t been the Dark One, he would have seen the bomb, because he is a field agent and this is not the first time he’s interrogated trigger-happy, bomb-loving opponents. The only reason Merlin misses it is because he is merely an observer in this, and he has trust in Galahad to lead the test for the candidates. 

But Arthur’s orders burn his skin, and so Galahad can only watch helplessly as history repeats itself, as Merlin shouts and Galahad struggles and Lancelot strides forward and willingly sacrifices himself in the name of the greater good. 

Merlin doesn’t suspect him, thankfully, but Galahad knows that Merlin knows something is wrong, and that their relationship will never be the same again, because whether in this life or the last, Merlin has always liked Lancelot. They’ve both been outsiders with secrets, after all, and Merlin knows damn well that Lee has a child that the Kingsman – and Galahad by extension – has just made fatherless. And if there’s one thing Merlin has always wanted, it’s that no child would know that pain.

“I’ll deal with this mess . . . personally,” Galahad says, and Merlin just lets his lips thin and carries on.

As much as it burned to let Lee die, it burns even more to see Merlin turn his back on him.

So after the new Lancelot is welcomed to the table, after Arthur raises quite a few eyebrows by refusing to acknowledge the death of a candidate, after all the celebrations and drinking and story-telling, Galahad does the only thing he can do and slips into Arthur’s chambers to retrieve Excalibur from where it hangs in Arthur’s bedroom. It’s surprisingly easy to take down, and that, if anything, renews Galahad’s faith.

It’s not that no one else can wield Excalibur, after all. But she was made for Arthur, forged by a woman who loved him and blessed by a sorcerer who’d give his life for him, and she’s always made Galahad uneasy whenever he had to wield her.

Now, though, Excalibur – the blade of honor and courage and truth – just lies there quietly, light and unassuming. 

He goes to the Lake of Avalon, and this time he does not wait for the Lady of the Lake to greet him. He waves Excalibur once, twice, thrice – and then he hauls his arm back and _throws_ , as though he means to send Excalibur to heart of the island itself. She gleams in the air as she flies, and as she reaches the water, Galahad sees one lone arm reach from the depths and seize the hilt. The Lady holds it briefly, hesitating, before she sinks beneath the waves, and the sword goes with her, glittering in the fiery beams of sunrise.

For the first time, when Galahad returns, Arthur raises a hand against him. After that, he carries the Dagger everywhere, and Galahad accepts it for the declaration of war that it is.

* * *

Once upon a time, the High King Arthur Pendragon was an honorable man.

And in the beginning, he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: "A Beloved Man"! Featuring Eggsy, Nimueh, and Lake of Avalon shenanigans.


	4. A Beloved Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A beloved man meets his doom.

Once upon a time, the High King Arthur Pendragon was a beloved man.

* * *

If Lancelot’s first death exposed a crack in the foundations of the Round Table, his second death widens that crack into chasm that cannot be crossed. Galahad has excused many of Arthur’s deeds over the years in the name of the king he once was and the king he will be someday when Albion’s need is greatest, but the death of Lancelot is something he finds he cannot. However, by the same token, Arthur apparently was able to forgive Galahad taking away the Grail, but the loss of Excalibur is beyond such forgiveness.

After that night, they hardly speak again, and generally only in the scope of their relationship as fellow members of the Round Table.

Even Merlin notices and calls him down under the prefix of helping him install a Kingsman-certified surveillance system in his home. “So, Harry,” he says, tone faux casual as he tinkers with a hard drive.

“Merlin.”

“Are you okay?”

And there are so many things Galahad wants to say to that. That he hasn’t had the need to sleep in hundreds of years but wishes he could now. That three days ago Arthur raised his hand and slapped Galahad so hard he slammed into a wall. That he just watched his friend walk into death and didn’t lift a finger to stop him. That he wishes Merlin, the real Merlin, was back.

“No,” Galahad says finally. Even if this Merlin has no memory of their original lives, he won’t lie to him, even if he also can’t say the full truth. “Things will pass in time.”

Merlin gives him a long look, and then he says, “Follow me.”

They go through the workshop and then down a long tunnel and then through another workshop and down an even longer tunnel, and Galahad is just wondering if Arthur’s given Merlin the order to retire Harry Hart when Merlin carefully shuts the door and then determinedly taps a particular little rhythm on the desk that causes a small light to go on and the overhead light to turn off.

“This is the quartermaster’s bunker,” Merlin explains, leaning casually against his desk. “The rooms were discovered by my predecessor’s teacher and were so difficult to arrange surveillance for due to the thickness of the natural rock walls and the distance from the main headquarters that it became the top-secret bunker instead. There are no security cameras or recording devices in here, not even my own. Only one quartermaster ever has the key, and each changes that key upon receiving it. We store the top level plans down here, the ones that are only kept on paper and one copy only.”

Galahad hums. Trust the Merlins of the Kingsman to find the one room that Emrys had once used so long ago to help Galahad hone his magical skills in a castle far from Camelot where they could practice without fear; thick natural walls are not the only obstacles to surveillance down here. He can still see hundreds of little spells gleaming all over the place. “Is there a mission I haven’t been told about that I’m now assuming responsibility for?”

“Yes, and no,” Merlin says, because heavens forbid the Merlins ever learn to speak in plain language and not riddles. He fiddles briefly through a drawer and then emerges with a Kingsman medal clutched in his hand.

Or, at least, something that looks very much like a Kingsman medal. No true medal of the Kingsman is devoid of tracing devices or cameras the way this one is. 

“What is this?”

“On the back of that medal is a direct line to HQ,” Merlin says nonchalantly, as if that number isn’t so secretly guarded that it actually isn’t written down anywhere and is only carried in the memory of the dozens of knights and support staff. “In the old days, the Kingsman extended . . . favors, shall we call them, to the families of those who had lost members to our service.”

“I thought only Arthur had that authority.”

“Arthur,” Merlin confirms, “and the acting-Arthur.”

Galahad gives Merlin a sharp look. Even without his memory or his magic, this Merlin is _dangerous_ ; Galahad once saw him casually take down a room of five opponents in three seconds and with a great deal of broken arms and legs. True, they once trained together, but while Galahad has the advantage of years in the field, Merlin has the advantage of having watched _all_ the knights in the field and, as a result, having learned all of their strengths and weaknesses. Armed with a computer or a gun or, hell, even a pen, Merlin is possibly the most dangerous of all the members of Kingsman save Galahad and Arthur themselves, and they have the advantage of magic and centuries of experience on their side. And it’s true that in the event of the death of an Arthur, the Merlin is considered the most suitable replacement, but – 

“Is this an invitation for a coup?” Galahad asks quietly, because for all his love for Merlin and his current anger at Arthur, he’s still sworn to Arthur first.

Merlin rolls his eyes. “Why are you such a _paranoid bastard_ ,” he complains, and throws the medal so that Galahad is forced to catch or bend down and scrape around in the dark to find it again. “I’m always acting-Arthur, you know as well as I do Arthur passes on a lot of the important paperwork to me first. Now would you please use the brain God gave you and put that medal to good use? I’ve got better things to do that sit around and wait for that stupefied look to fall off your face.”

* * *

After her banishment, Galahad never saw Guinevere again. He’d relied mainly on Merlin’s reports of how well she was doing, and Merlin had only ever scryed for her. They’d all been so used to a vibrant Guinevere that a defeated one was beyond their comprehension, and like cowards they’d all stayed away.

The truth is that a defeated, grieving Guinevere is almost as painful as seeing Lancelot die again.

“I hope you can understand,” Galahad tells her awkwardly, after she’s collapsed with shock on the settee looking like her world has ended. He wills her to understand, to awaken, to _know_ , even though he knows that to look in Guinevere’s face and see her understand that he let her beloved die and didn’t do a thing to stop it would destroy him in a way not even Arthur’s rage had. 

But, of course, destiny listens to Galahad no more this time than it did last time, and Michelle remains Michelle.

“How can I understand? You won’t tell me anything! I didn’t even know he wasn’t with his squad.”

Galahad winces. Guinevere had never complained in front of other knights, but Galahad had known – as they all had – that if there was one thing that had always bothered her, it was when Arthur or Merlin or any of the Knights had conspired to keep secrets around her in the name of her protection. _I am the Queen,_ she had once shouted at Arthur through closed doors, _and Camelot is my home too! Don’t you dare keep things from me again!_ He wills her to remember – for those beautiful, so familiar and yet so alien eyes to light up, to recognize, to scream, to shout, anything but this broken-heartedness blankness. 

But Michelle remains Michelle, and Guinevere remains dead and buried.

“I’m so sorry,” Galahad says, “I can’t say more.”

_If it were up to me,_ he wants to say, _I would take you and the boy away right now. Put you in a safe house, ensure nothing ever happened to you, take care of you the way I promised Lancelot._

Unfortunately, it’s not up to him. Arthur had even specifically given him orders, once they’d returned with one dead body and one brand new knight. And the Dark One cannot disobey orders; Galahad can only circumvent, and this he has done to the best of his abilities with what Merlin has given him.

“But I would like to present you,” Galahad continues, “with this Medal of Valor. And if you look closely on the back, there’s a number. As a more concrete gesture of our gratitude, we’d like to offer you . . . let’s call it a favor.”

He’s losing her, he can tell. Guinevere was never proud, exactly, not the same way stubborn young Prince Arthur was, with the entire world watching and everything to prove, but she was strong. She would never take the easy way out. And there’s no way to give her this favor without making it seem like the easy way out unless he explains everything, and that he cannot do.

Nothing to do now except wrap up the spiel, then. “The nature of the favor is your choice. Just tell the operator ‘oxfords not brogues’ and then I’ll know it’s you.”

For one second, one glorious second, Galahad sees her look at the medal and then her brow creases as she thinks of her son, and for just one second he thinks, _She’s going to take it._

And then she slaps his hand aside. “I don’t want your help! I want my husband back!”

The apology for her loss comes out rotely after that. There is nothing he can do for her now, even though he looks and watches her sweet young son play and wonders if, were he in the same position, he would also turn aside the help that would protect his son in the absence of his other parent. Of course, Michelle has no idea of the dangers that plague even permanently retired almost-knight Kingsman agents, and Galahad has never been in love, but still. It sits deep in his chest, down by his sinking heart and weary mind, and he wonders, wonders if it truly is possible to love someone so much that even a thousand years later, their death burns in the heart of one’s very soul and can warp everything around it.

_I suppose I’ll never know,_ Galahad muses, and moves instead to crouch by the little boy half-heartedly shifting around blocks in between poking a snowglobe.

“Hello,” he says quietly. “And what’s your name, young man?”

The answer comes mumbled, soft and sweet: “Eggsy.”

“Hello, Eggsy,” Galahad says, as gentle as he can, because no matter who his parents are, this child is innocent, and Galahad knows that if Michelle or Lee had remembered him and somehow still had been content to have him around, he would have adored this child as all the Knights would have. “Can I have that?”

The boy offers him the snow globe without hesitation or fear. He’s kind even so young, which Galahad supposes shouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for the child of Guinevere and Lancelot.

“Eggsy,” he says seriously, after a moment, because yes, the boy is young, but if there’s anything Galahad has learned over the years it is that children are vastly underestimated. “You take care of this, all right? And – and take care of your mum too.”

Eggsy nods seriously, little fingers wrapped tight around his medal, and Galahad gives in to the temptation to touch his head, just once. Just for one moment, but it’s long enough for Galahad to release the spells he’s prepared for this very moment, spells of protection and agility and awareness that he weaves into the air around Eggsy with painstaking detail. He has a feeling it’s going to be a long, long, long time before he hears from the Unwins, if ever, and he can’t do much, but he can do this, because a few thousand years were more than enough to study the ways of Merlin’s protection spells.

“Good-bye, Eggsy,” Galahad says, when he’s done all he can without lingering overlong.

The boy waves solemnly at him.

It’s the last he sees of Eggsy for seventeen years.

* * *

Arthur doesn’t seem likely to let Galahad “retire” and have a few years of peace after the whole debacle with Lee and Excalibur, so Galahad gives in with a sigh and starts aging himself. Not too much, mind, just a few gray hairs here and there, a few scars that actually stay, a few joints that actually ache. Enough that he can actually pass as agent who is in excellent shape but is still aging like all the rest.

In the meantime, Arthur’s hair goes completely white, much to his dismay, and he ends up needing real glasses.

Galahad finds no pity for him.

He visits the Lake of Avalon once, bearing a picture of little Eggsy and hoping against hope to convince the Lady to convince one of her less than human friends to help keep an eye on him, but even though he waits for an entire day, no one appears, and the lake’s waves keep a steady rhythm undisturbed by his presence.

So Galahad ages and fights and trains and bleeds and ages some more. He thinks, sometimes in the depths of night when he misses Lancelot and Guinevere and Camelot with all of his heart, of apologizing, but then the next day he wakes up and sees Lancelot’s seat at the table filled with James, and he can’t, he _can’t_ apologize for going against Arthur’s back after that devastating order. Arthur doesn’t apologize either, and within five years they barely share so much as three words together, much less the days and weeks and years they used to spend when all they had was each other.

It’s lonely, perhaps, but Galahad always knew being the Dark One would be lonely.

Ten years after that rift, Percival makes waves when he proposes the first female candidate. She’s fierce and blonde and don’t take any of the boys’ sneers lying down, and Galahad supports her because she’s wonderful and, as a bonus, it clearly annoys Arthur. It doesn’t matter in the end, though, because Arthur calls her in for a private meeting and whatever he says, she comes out with an ashen face and downtrodden eyes and turns in her resignation the next day.

He requests lunch the next day, and Arthur is so shocked he agrees without thinking.

“Why did you turn her down?” Galahad asks bluntly, the second all the courses are served and the room is clear.

Arthur carefully spoons up some soup, blows on it to cool it, and then sips delicately. Once as a knight he would’ve swallowed the whole thing in two seconds because when you’re in the woods you don’t have time for delicacy, but years of courtly manners have made him soft. “Kingsman is not ready.”

“Is that the Kingsman, or the Kingsman you speak for?”

“Careful, Galahad,” Arthur says. “They are one and the same.”

“Kingsman stands for integrity and service to our people above else,” Galahad replies shortly, because he won’t be threatened over adding a female knight to their frankly monotone ranks. “I fail to see how that doesn’t apply to her.”

Arthur takes a deep breath. “I won’t have my decisions challenged by the likes of you. I am the King.”

“Ah, yes,” Galahad says. “So you are. And as your father once said, the one who must say that he is the king is no true king at all.”

Arthur swells like a bullfrog, and so Galahad calls upon the Darkness and lets it carry him to the door. He has no interest in an argument he cannot win, not with all the cards stacked against him. His protest has been lodged and ignored, and his business is done.

“Her name was Igraine.”

Galahad stops.

“Her name was Igraine, and I would not – I could not. I could not.”

Galahad sighs, because he too understands why, even if he has long since come to terms with it. “Arthur. My king,” he says, and feels more than sees the way Arthur startles at the address Galahad has refused to use since Arthur hit him across the face, “you cannot run from all the shadows of your past. These are people, living, breathing people, not memories. You must allow them the right to live their own lives, as we have done.”

“You mean, as I have done. You . . . are not afforded the same courtesy.”

It is the first time in a thousand years Galahad has heard some hesitance, such openness about his fate as the Dark One. Hoping against hope, he turns to see Arthur holding the Dagger lightly in his hands, like a man at the altar clutching at the rosary. It is not, exactly, a reassuring sight, but if Arthur will yield . . . 

“Does that mean you will let me take back the Dagger?”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, Galahad regrets them. That strange old light dims, and Arthur’s shoulders straighten and his mouth firms and his eyes narrow, and he is no longer anything like the King Arthur Galahad once served and loved. He is Chester King now, the leader of the Kingsman.

“No. You pledged your life to mine, and I do not release you from that pledge.”

Galahad nods. He expected nothing less, but he had to try, of course. “Good-bye, Arthur,” he says quietly, and leaves.

* * *

The years continue to pass. Arthur grows ever more short-tempered, Galahad grows wearier, and Merlin gets more and more sarcastic. Galahad awaits every day when he is home to see that the Unwins’ favor has been called in, but although he fulfills several other favors, Lee’s is never used.

He’s not particularly surprised. He thought it would either be used immediately, just as Michelle had gotten over the shock of his announcement, or would never be used, out of hatred and stubbornness.

He would keep tabs, but Arthur forbids it so mostly Galahad sits and hopes and hopes some more.

In all honesty, Galahad doesn’t know how much hope he has left.

* * *

And then one day, Merlin calls him on his private line – not his Kingsman private, his actual private line paid for out of his own money and so rarely used he usually forgets it exists – and says, “I’m sending you coordinates, and you need to get down there and make some very good promises very quickly.”

“Threats or promises?” Galahad asks, amused, because Merlin is generally of the opinion that every threat is just a rather scary promise in disguise. 

“Whatever works.”

“Very well,” Galahad sighs, because even though it’s his day off, if he doesn’t go, Merlin will just start harassing him via official channels like his glasses, his computer, his Kingsman phone, his Kingsman private phone, and his bloody front door. Merlin’s a rather persistent little bugger sometimes. “And who, pray tell, am I making these promises for?”

Merlin makes a sound that’s a cross between a hum and a groan. 

“Merlin, don’t tell me one of your techs has gotten arrested for public indecency again.”

Merlin squawks, “That was only once!”

To be perfectly fair to Merlin, it was only once, and the tech wasn’t someone Merlin had hired. He had taken on the boy for a trial run at the behest of one of their sponsors, and the boy had been so enamored of Kingsman tech he’d attempted to recreate some of it in his bedroom, leading to one _very_ hyper, drugged up apprentice tech who had proceeded to start throwing off his clothes and run around screaming about how King Arthur had returned. Galahad had taken great pleasure in testing out the new amnesia darts on that one.

“And besides,” Merlin continues, regaining his equilibrium, “the only reason you didn’t know before me is you, for once, are not glued to your computer.”

“I do not spend my days glued to my computer,” Galahad retorts automatically, because he merely watches and gathers intel. Every knight does this. Hell, even a good portion of the support staff do it. It’s an instinct none of them can truly shed.

“Well, a little birdie told me Gary Unwin called in this thing you might remember. Called a favor, I believe – Galahad? Harry?”

The second the Unwin name reaches his ears, Galahad is up, out the door, and leaving the phone behind. Merlin will eventually figure things out and hang up on his phone. Forgiveness might take longer, but Galahad and Merlin have one of the most argument-prone relationships in Kingsman, and he’s got long practice in buying gifts to sweeten his apologies. Besides, Merlin’s even got a car waiting when he shuts the door, so clearly he knew.

He says, “Thanks, Merlin,” and then gets to work.

* * *

Gary “Eggsy” Unwin, as it turns out, has had time to amass a considerable file on all sorts of charges, ranging from stealing to fleeing from officers to vandalism, and even includes alleged charges Galahad thinks are more likely alleged in the manner of couldn’t-be-proved, rather than he-is-innocent. Each page makes his heart sink even more, because Eggsy showed such _potential_ at one time: top grades at school, rising gymnastic career, promising military enlistment.

“Hey, if, uh anything happens,” Lee had once said quietly, back after Merlin had cheerfully nearly drowned them all the first night the candidates had slept and it had slowly dawned on them all just how serious the body bag threats were, “are there, you know, provisions? For our families?”

Galahad had had to say, “No,” mostly because at that time, they’d never had a candidate who had had a spouse and child before. They’d always recruited young, and mostly from the ranks of Kingsman agents or support staff or staff from other agencies in the same business, so to speak.

“Well, then,” Lee had said, “you’d better make some provisions and take care of my family. Even if you have to do it personally.”

Galahad had agreed without thinking, because at the time he’d been so sure he could hide Lancelot and Guinevere from Arthur. And now seventeen years have gone by, and a frustrated, scowling man is sitting in lock-up about to do 18 months for charges that he hasn’t a hope of escaping without help.

Galahad closes his eyes, but he doesn’t hold an imaginary apology session like he once might have. Words won’t get Eggsy out of prison.

Or, at least, imaginary ones to Lee won’t.

So Galahad strolls into the police station, makes a few calls, makes a few more promises, and secures Eggsy’s release, because they really don’t have that much evidence and for Merlin it’s as easy as breathing to make the idea of continuing to press charges a really, really bad one on paper.

When Eggsy leaves, looking rather like a man who’s so confused that he’d rather keep walking than risk asking too many questions, Galahad watches him go and feels his heart sink even more, because he looks so much like Lancelot and Lee that it burns, it truly burns, deep in his soul. None of the other Knights have children, not from their old lives and not from their reincarnated ones, and Eggsy should be the darling of the court, spoiled and loved and protected, and instead he’s just a young man struggling to get a decent meal three times a day.

Eggsy turns, just slightly, probably trying to figure out the best way home and – 

And.

And.

And Galahad’s mind goes blank and his mouth falls open and he takes a step forward all without meaning to, because _that sight_ , right there, that is the same dream Galahad has had for hundreds of years, and he’d always known that some of his dreams were actually prophetic visions when his control over the Dark One’s magic slackened in sleep, but to know that and to see it in action are two very, very different things.

Which is when Eggsy whips around and snaps, “Who the hell are you?” 

Galahad says, “The man who got you released.” The words are automatic, because he doesn’t have any idea what he said to prompt Eggsy to notice him but he certainly said something, and the first rule of living forever is to learn to blend in even when you slip up.

Eggsy’s face goes sour. “That ain’t an answer.”

Galahad knows exactly what he looks like. The second rule of living forever is to master appearing as anything you want, and with his obviously expensive suit, seemingly supercilious umbrella, and air of confidence, Galahad knows he looks intimidating in ways that make most men think twice about challenging him verbally or physically. In short – he is beyond delighted at Eggsy’s sass, even if he understands, now, exactly why most police reports had seemed so exasperated at the boy.

So Galahad replies, “A little gratitude would be nice,” not because he thinks he’ll actually get it, but really just to see what Eggsy will say.

Eggsy doesn’t disappoint; his face is a _masterpiece_.

Which is when Galahad comes to his second realization, because Arthur once ordered him to cease keeping tabs on the Unwins and not meet up with them and right now Galahad should be feeling a very strong urge to tip his nonexistent hat and trot off into the distance – but he’s not. There’s no command nipping at his heels, no leash drawing him back, no noose tightening around his throat. Galahad isn’t stupid enough to think he’s free, since he’d know if Arthur lost command of the dagger, but he’ll take this inch of freedom and run as far as he can with it.

“My name is Harry Hart,” he says, because saying Galahad would be weird even though it took years to get to the point where responding to Harry felt natural, “and I gave you that medal. Your father saved my life.”

* * *

Eggsy is pretty much too dazed by that revelation to do more than stare and follow helplessly when Galahad gets them into the car and to a pub near Eggsy’s house. Galahad can guess the thoughts running through his head, starting with _My mom never mentioned you_ to _Then where the hell have you been all these years?_ to _What’s with this weird medal thing, when I called the number customer service picked up_. He has answers for all of them, so of course Eggsy picks the one question Galahad was not expecting.

“So before you was a tailor,” Eggsy asks slowly, “you was in the army? Like an officer?”

The smile comes reflexively and painfully. He’s been in so many armies now he’s lost count. “Not quite,” he says, and he’s grateful it’s the truth.

“So where was you posted, Iraq or something?”

“Sorry, Eggsy, classified,” Galahad says, and he truly is sorry, but it is actually classified, and for all that Eggsy is Lee and Michelle’s son there are some things he can’t say without betraying his king.

Eggsy doesn’t particularly like that answer, he can tell, in the same way most children do not appreciate being told that something is out of their reach. But he keeps trying, and it warms Galahad’s heart. “But my dad saved your life, yeah?”

“The day your father died,” Galahad says slowly, because he refuses to lie and quite honestly that grenade would not have been able to kill the Dark One, “I missed something.” _Arthur’s descent into indecency._ “And if it weren’t for your father’s courage, my mistake would have cost the lives of every man present. So I owe him. Your father was a brave man, a good man.”

Eggsy swallows and looks down, and he looks so _young_ and he had so much promise, and before he knows it a thousand years of bitterness are pouring out of his mouth unintended, because Eggsy was _free_ , free in a way Galahad hasn’t been, free from destiny and Arthur and Darkness, and this is where he ended up.

“And having read your files, I think he’d be bitterly disappointed in you.”

Rage turns Eggsy’s face red. It’s an interesting sight; he’d had never seen Guinevere or Lancelot turn so red ever. “You,” Eggsy snarls, “you can’t talk to me like that.”

“Huge IQ,” Galahad interrupts calmly, to hide the way his hands are shaking, “great performance at primary school. And then it all went tits up. Drugs, petty crime. Never held a job.”

“You think there’s a lot of jobs around going around here, do you?”

In all fairness, Galahad hadn’t held a job either until much, much later in life, but he presses on, because still. “Doesn’t explain why you gave up your hobbies,” he replies. “First prize, regional under-10s gymnastics. Your coach had you pegged as Olympic team material.”

“Yeah, well,” Eggsy spits, “when you’re around someone like my stepdad, you pick up new hobbies pretty quick.”

_Your stepfather cannot have anything on Arthur,_ Galahad thinks, and his next words are below the belt but he can’t stop himself. “Of course. Always someone else’s fault. And who, pray, is to blame for you quitting the Marines? You were halfway through training, doing brilliantly, but you gave up.”

Eggsy’s face slides from red to white, and Galahad would be fascinated but for how Eggsy seems to go incandescent with rage, to the point where even his own senses start to whisper of _danger danger danger_.

“Because my mom went _mental_!” Eggsy shouts. “Banging on about losing me as well as my dad! Didn’t want me being cannon fodder for snobs like you. Judging people like me from your ivory towers with no thought about why we do what we do. We ain’t got much choice, you get me? And if we was born with the same silver spoon up our arses we’d do just as well as you. If not better.”

He finishes his speech with a self-righteous little nod and sits back, and Galahad nearly bows out of instinct. He hasn’t felt this way since the last time Arthur led a charge on a battlefield.

Galahad is so busy staring, in fact, that he doesn’t notice the men marching up until they’re almost on top of them.

“Some more examples of young men who need silver suppositories?” he asks wryly, a little alarmed at how rapidly the righteous anger drains away from Eggsy as he curls up like a little pillbug. He’s seen that reaction before, and logically he knows the likely causes, but his mind can’t accept it. Galahad knows for a fact he put pure force upon the spells on Eggsy, surely he can’t have.

Surely he _can’t_ have been hurt.

“No, they’re exceptions,” Eggsy says hurriedly, “come on, let’s go.”

Galahad raises one eyebrow. If Eggsy says leave, he is most certainly not going to, because he can smell the violence on these men same as Eggsy. If they leave, they’ll just follow and beat Eggsy up later and he won’t let that happen. “Nonsense, we haven’t finished our drinks.”

Eggsy’s exasperated groan is drowned out by the ringleader of the little posse. “After you nicked his car, Dean says you’re fair game,” the man leers.

And Galahad has heard enough. “Listen, boys,” he says mildly, because no matter how old they are, they’re all boys to him. “I’ve had a rather . . . emotional day, so whatever your beef with Eggsy is – and I’m sure it’s well-founded – I’d appreciate it enormously if you could leave us in peace until I finish this lovely pint of Guinness.” 

The man’s eyes swing to him, and it’s like looking at the past; bullies truly don’t change no matter what time period you’re in. “You better get out of the way, Granddad,” he says softly, probably aiming for menacing but missing the mark quite a bit, “or you’ll get hurt.”

Galahad is about to say something else when Eggsy touches his arm, and it shocks him. He hasn’t been touched in a long, long time, but what startles him more is that all of his wards and spells – they’re all gone. Eggsy is as bare and unmarked as the day he was born, but there’s no trace of another sorcerer on him.

“He ain’t joking. You should go.” _Please_ , he reads in Eggsy’s eyes.

Somehow the plea is more compelling than any order, so Galahad sighs and makes a note to discretely observe from outside. He’s just about clear of the pub when – 

“If you’re looking for another rent boy, they’re on the corner of Smith Street.”

Galahad stops. Sighs.

Well, Merlin had remarked he’d need an outlet for all of his energy after the death of James, something he’d remarked to every Knight, actually. Galahad had never had to take his advice until now.

One incredibly short fight later, and he’s sliding back into the seat, not even winded. However brief, though, it’s enough to sate the Darkness baying for blood and violence ever since he learned of James’s death and the fact that his first thought was not sorrow but rather _what a waste of Lee’s sacrifice_ , much to his own horror. It settles back into his belly with easy grace, and Galahad drains the rest of his drink just for the pure pleasure of being at ease once again.

Eggsy, though, is staring at him the same way Mr. Pickle did the first time Harry tried to introduce him to the idea of a bath: eyes wide, shoulders back, so alarmed that if he had dog ears, they’d be flat against his head.

“Sorry about that,” Galahad offers, because Eggsy’s not an idiot. Former military service doesn’t explain his bulletproof umbrella. “Needed to let off some steam. I heard yesterday that a friend of mine died. He actually knew your father too.” Before Eggsy can ask any more questions Galahad can’t answer, though, he stands and checks his watch, and the amnesia dart’s sedative will be wearing off shortly so it’s time to go. “Now, I do apologize, Eggsy, I shouldn’t have done this in front of you.”

Eggsy’s hands go up immediately and he curls up even more, and Galahad hesitates for the first time in centuries because, well. He’s Guinevere’s _child_ , and just as innocent as he was the first time Galahad met him.

“No, please! I won’t say anything, I swear! If there’s one thing I can do, it’s keep my mouth shut!”

It isn’t exactly a lie; Galahad’s seen Eggsy’s files. But this is also more sensitive than just the name of accomplices or drug dealers, so Galahad says, “You won’t tell a soul?”

“Ask the feds,” Eggsy says desperately. “I’ve never grassed anyone up!”

“Is that a promise?” Galahad asks, and he weaves pure magic into his sentence, a command that cannot be ignored, because a knight never breaks a promise.

Most people facing down Galahad’s watch and formidable skills would just say “Yes” or “Definitely” or “Whatever you want”. Eggsy, his clever little unusual soul, swears, “On my life!”

Galahad looks into his eyes, and the Darkness whispers _truth_.

“Much appreciated,” Galahad says cheerfully, partly because he can already imagine the temper tantrum Merlin’s going to throw about cleaning this up and partly to try and make that wounded, fearful look vanish from Eggsy’s face. “You’re right about the snobs, by the way; but there too, there are exceptions. Best of luck with everything.”

Eggsy snorts at that, but Galahad just smiles.

His little parting gift will ensure Eggsy has the best luck of all.

* * *

Merlin gives Galahad a _very_ flat look as soon as the door shuts behind Eggsy. “And just where,” he says, deceptively soft, “do you think you’re going, Agent Galahad?”

Galahad stops immediately, because he isn’t stupid. Merlin would never be so unprofessional as to use his real name in HQ, but saying “Agent Galahad” is his equivalent to a parent saying someone’s first, middle, and last name, and he really doesn’t want to be on Merlin’s bad side right now.

“I have an . . . errand to run.”

“Mmm,” Merlin says. “And does that errand have a name?”

“I’m sorry I hacked into your files?”

“If you were, you would have cleaned up after yourself better,” Merlin informs him curtly, and, well, he’s not wrong. Merlin is the type who’ll just be more pissed if you try and hide it from him, so Galahad tends to opt for the “better ask for forgiveness than permission” approach with him most of the time.

Galahad just shrugs. If Merlin found out, then he certainly read the file Galahad accessed, and he’ll either know why or he’ll figure it out shortly.

Merlin eyes him and then sighs, because he knows when to pick his battles. “Try not to die, yeah?” he asks wearily. “I think you’d want to see your candidate make it across the finish line in one piece.”

“Why, Merlin,” Galahad says, “I didn’t know you thought so little of me.”

Then he goes off and has some very strong, pointed conversations with Mr. Dean Anthony Baker. He doesn’t kill him, because he doesn’t want anyone who has even less of a brain than him to go haring after Michelle for whatever reason, but he _does_ take a great deal of time and pleasure out of tormenting. After all, it’s easy magic to make an hour seem like a day, and he wears the Dark One’s natural face with no small amount of glee just to see how much the man blubbers and screams and wets himself.

Galahad only drops the man off at a local hospital after he takes his time pressing one very specific and powerful command into the man’s tiny little brain: _You will never_ _go near, touch, or speak to Eggsy or Michelle ever again_.

The man is so gone at that point he says whatever he can to get Galahad away, which works out nicely, and so Galahad lets him go and goes strolling back into HQ with a smile.

Merlin puts him in charge of cleaning up all of the glass and water from where Eggsy apparently _broke the mirror_ to escape being drowned, and the punishment is honestly worth the story and the CCTV.

* * *

Then comes ash and fire and _pain_ , and Galahad is so startled that he nearly doesn’t see the men rushing at him with guns raised and anger all over their faces. He hasn’t felt pain – true, real, burning pain – like this for so many years, not since the first time Morgana sank her claws into his brain and made him scream until Emrys threw her clear across the battlefield, eyes alight with rage.

_I should have sensed the bomb,_ Galahad thinks distantly, as he plants a grenade and heaves himself out the nearest window, and then he thinks nothing else.

* * *

Eggsy is the first person to visit Galahad after he’s woken and refreshed himself. This is not a surprise – Merlin and his nurses have been telling him how often Eggsy has come in to visit, chatter, and occasionally nap – but what is a surprise is just how great the swell of affection is in his chest when he catches sight of that familiar cocky smile.

“Ever heard of knocking?” Galahad asks dryly, because it won’t do to let his reputation slide.

Eggsy takes it in stride. In fact, he actually brightens, which is good; the boy needs some joy in his life. “Only when I’m casing a place to rob,” he shoots back.

Galahad gives him a look. 

Or, rather, he gives the mirror a look, and holds faith in Eggsy’s training that he’ll notice it. He’s rewarded by the sheepish flush that appears, although Eggsy holds his ground, which also bolds well. Steel of spine, his Eggsy.

“Merlin said you wanted to see me?”

And, well, actually Galahad had said nothing of the sort, but he supposes that having his first question be not “What happened” and instead be “Where is Eggsy” is rather telling of him. He blames whatever magic allowed a bomb to get through the Dark One’s defenses and leave him unconscious whilst the Darkness surged to the forefront to heal him.

So instead, Galahad just says, “Congratulations on making it to the final six candidates. Your test results were even better than I had hoped.”

Eggsy turns bright red at that, which is good because it means he doesn’t see how Galahad frowns at him.

His wards – all of the spells he so carefully recrafted and placed back on Eggsy during their little ride to HQ – are all gone. Every single one of them, wiped clean as though they never existed. And true, Kingsman training _is_ dangerous, but Galahad put down the kind of wards that would take the full force of a tractor trailer slamming into Eggsy and leave him unharmed, and he doubts that Kingsman training is enough to exhaust even those kinds of wards. Besides, an exhausted ward and a blank slate read differently. It’s almost like . . . almost like _Eggsy_ shed the spells, as if he’s the polar opposite and they slid right off instead of magnetizing to him like they’re supposed to.

But Eggsy’s not a sorcerer.

But then again, Galahad also should have sensed the bomb, so perhaps the solution to all of these questions is Galahad’s own magic.

_Is the Darkness fading?_ he wonders.

* * *

Hauling three unconscious trainees out of a club and onto the makeshift train tracks is a lot easier said than done, to be brutally honest. The club has Kingsman ties but is not Kingsman owned, so they really have to sneak the trainees out, and keeping them under until it’s time for their particular interrogation requires more careful dosing under Merlin’s watchful eye.

Roxy, Percival’s candidate, goes first.

Galahad listens with a half ear as he sits by Eggsy’s prone body and, just for curiosity’s sake, slips a fresh spell or two on his candidate’s body. Nothing as major as before, just small ones; ones to prevent bruises and help ease the hangover.

He wonders how long they will last.

Roxy, they discover, has a very intriguingly wide knowledge of some rather coarse words, which she employs expertly upon Bors, to the point where he even stutters once, causing Percival to laugh and Merlin to snicker, just a little bit. She passes with flying colors, and even manages to untie herself once Percival explains the test.

Then it’s Eggsy’s turn.

And Galahad – Galahad hurts, so badly, to hear his Eggsy screaming and pleading and shouting, because it wasn’t that he thought Eggsy would lie about never revealing his secrets, but it’s one thing to hear him face down his stepfather and quite another to hear him literally begging for his safety, all of his fear and anger and _life_ poured into a few words that end with a very passionate middle finger to Bors.

Bors, laughing, hands Galahad the knife as they trade places. “Oh, good lord,” he chuckles, “I am so glad I put a bet on your lad or Percival’s. I am so going to win this time.”

Gambling on the candidates is a time honored tradition, so Galahad settles for merely a middle finger of his own, which just makes Bors laugh harder.

“Congratulations,” Galahad tells Eggsy as he looks around, realization slowly dawning on him. “Bloody well done.”

Eggsy swallows once, twice. Takes a deep breath. It’s a training method Merlin would have taught to dial down after an adrenaline high on the field, and Galahad approves. “How’d the others do?”

“Roxy passed with flying colors,” Galahad says, because he’s sure Eggsy cares more about her than Charlie. “Charlie’s up next. Want to watch?”

“Yeah, all right.”

And his tone is casual and unaffected, but even so, as Galahad leans down to cut apart the ropes and then pull him up into the station, he can still see Eggsy trembling, just slightly, so in the guise of guiding him into the main operating room he presses his hand into the small of Eggsy’s back and thinks _be warm_ and Eggsy’s shoulders relax and it soothes some small, distant, clamoring part in the back of Galahad’s mind.

Watching Charlie break in two seconds soothes the rest, especially when Arthur looks straight at the camera and scowls.

* * *

Eggsy, as it turns out, is easy to please. Galahad tells him a few stories, teaches him how to make proper drinks, cooks him a warm meal, and Eggsy is snoozing by midnight, entirely dead to the world as Galahad scoops him up and carries him to the guest room. He has at least gained some weight, but he’s still thinner than Galahad would prefer, so he’s glad he was able to feed Eggsy and get some revitalizing potions into him. He’ll need it for whatever scheme Arthur cooks up this time, since Arthur was downright furious when Lee passed the last one.

He feels _right_ , in Galahad’s home, snuggled into warm blankets and face free of creases. Galahad has lived alone for so long, but right now he has the urge to open the wards permanently and welcome Eggsy into his home.

So he does the natural thing and goes to the Lake to scowl until someone appears.

“You’re not Freya,” he says, blinking.

The woman has dark hair and eyes that glow blue like a crystal set on fire. It’s unsettlingly. “The Lady of the Lake is a title, not a person,” she replies gently. “I am the Lady of the Lake now.”

“And I have business with Freya.”

“Then I’m afraid it might have to wait. I am to remain Lady of the Lake for quite some time.”

Galahad inclines his head politely, because there’s no point to pissing off one of the most powerful magical creatures left in the world. Fair enough; he can wait as long as it takes, really. In a way, it’s almost like an answer on its own to his – 

“Galahad.”

“Yes?”

The Lady drifts closer. Up close, she is very different from Freya. Freya was beautiful and powerful and fierce in her own right, but in many ways she was still a girl-child frozen in time at the moment of her death, thin from the malnutrition of her past life. This Lady is quite certainly full-grown, tall and in full confidence of her abilities, a woman who died in her prime.

“If this is about the boy, you really should kill him,” she says, almost casually. “You’ll save yourself a lot of heartache if you do.”

Galahad feels his face ripple; the Darkness does not appreciate threats. “Eggsy is under my protection.”

“Is he? How ironic.”

“We all deserve our own chance to live our own lives. It is our second chance. Wouldn’t you say so, Nimueh?”

The smile drops so fast from Nimueh’s face that the temperature drops with it. Ice forms around the edges of the lake, and frost steams from Galahad’s mouth, but it does not matter. The Darkness was born of the void and the dark and the cold. Ice merely feels like a homecoming.

“You cannot hope to understand why – ”

“You acted as you did?” Galahad finishes. “No, perhaps not. I do not wish to. I, unlike you, will aim to protect the innocent, even when I have been hurt by those too ignorant or angry to understand.”

Nimueh snarls. “I only ever wanted Uther. And he is dead.”

“Yes, he is.” Galahad pauses. After all, who knows how many more memories will crawl from the depths of the void to be reborn? Half the Round Table has come through already, and with each Galahad can feel destiny shifting, just a little bit, as Albion heeds the call of its King. “But for how long?’

“If you really cared for that boy, you’d slit his throat and be done with it,” Nimueh hisses. “Kilgharrah said much the same to Merlin about Morgana, and look what happened when he failed.”

“Eggsy is hardly going to raise an army to dethrone my king.”

Nimueh sniffs. “Guard your heart very carefully, Galahad. After all, _he_ is a new note in the song of destiny. It shouldn’t be too hard to hear him play in my symphony instead.”

And Galahad does not take well to threats either, so this time he leans back and gives into the Darkness, and the Dark One billows forth to dart forward and seize the Lady of the Lake’s throat, and when she cries out and her eyes flash and the waters rise, the Dark One quells it with a snarl. They are at night, under the darkness of a new moon; water is not enough to drown one such as the Dark One.

“Listen to me very carefully,” the Dark One says. “Gary Eggsy Unwin is the son of Lancelot and Guinevere and he is an innocent and you _will not lay one finger on him_. Otherwise Avalon will have to find a new guardian for its Lake.”

Nimueh struggles, but the Dark One holds her fast; night is the domain of the Darkness, after all.

“Let me go.”

“Swear it, Nimueh, on your life as the Lady of the Lake.”

Nimueh chokes and scrabbles at his hand, and the waters churn and boil around her, but the Dark One cannot be frozen or drowned or moved. They are at a stalemate, for the Dark One cannot kill the Lady of the Lake, but the Lady of the Lake cannot kill the Dark One. Normally magical stand offs are resolved by fighting until one can fight no longer due to exhaustion, but that will not happen here, so the Dark One merely bears its teeth and holds its ground.

“ _Yield_ ,” the Dark One snarls.

Nimueh goes limp – and then she turns into water, her body turning transparent and rippling piece by piece into the Lake below, until the Dark One is left just holding a tiny vial of cold, gleaming water.

_I submit,_ the waters whisper, but the Dark One already knew that.

A yield, and a boon as a show of faith.

“Good choice,” the Dark One says, and then they go home and make an enormous, delicious breakfast that has Eggsy smiling and JB barking up a storm as they devour their share, and the clear joy the two exude is enough to settle the Darkness back where it belongs in the depths of Galahad’s chest.

* * *

Before the test of loyalty, Arthur calls Galahad aside and looks him straight in the eye. He’s mostly ignored Eggsy aside from a few snide comments and angry glares, but he looks different now. He looks calm, but it is the calm of incandescent rage, and Galahad can’t help it but he tests the wards he placed on Eggsy while the boy slept and is thankful that they hold, and he feels so ashamed, because it’s _Arthur_ – but he does it all the same.

“Give me one good reason why I should let that – that _thing_ join the Kingsman,” Arthur says.

Galahad looks him straight back in the eye and does not flinch. Arthur is his King, but Galahad is his Knight; he has the right to tell his King when he is in the wrong.

“Because he is Guinevere’s son too.”

Arthur’s face goes pale and his hands tremble and he, for once, looks away first.

Galahad presses his advantage. “He is the son of Guinevere,” he repeats. “Would you deny her influence, her motherhood, her love? Would you deny her a chance to be happy? Would you deny her son a chance to be the person he was meant to be?”

“He has Lancelot’s name.”

“Lancelot was the best of all of us, once upon a time.”

Arthur laughs and shakes his head, but it is a sad laugh, one full of regret and sadness. “No,” he says thoughtfully. “You were always the best of us, Galahad. I just . . . forgot.”

Galahad looks at the floor. He knows the destiny he was foretold to fulfill, and in many ways he has fulfilled it – but he’s also had a very unfair advantage. And Lancelot would never let a brother-in-arms die, no matter the King’s command. But Lancelot is dead now; it is the future Galahad needs to think of.

“So you’ll test Eggsy.”

“So I will test Guinevere’s son,” Arthur agrees.

* * *

In retrospect, perhaps he should have Arthur’s final betrayal coming. 

In retrospect, perhaps he should have realized that Arthur’s surrender here would be more symbolic than tangible.

In retrospect, perhaps he should have done something else besides leave Eggsy sad-eyed and drained in his house after leaving with anger and frustration in his wake, and part of it was due to Eggsy but most of it was for Arthur and himself, and he _regrets_ , the second he shuts the door he regrets, but he is a Knight and he has a job and he keeps moving because he’s already betrayed so much of his code of honor and he cannot allow more innocent people to die on his watch.

He starts a letter to Eggsy in the plane. Drafts it seven times. Throws it away ten more. When the plane lands he tells himself he’ll apologize to Eggsy in person and dons his suit.

* * *

The rage is like nothing Galahad has ever felt. Certainly, the Darkness is a boiling mass of anger and hatred and fear at the center of his being, but this rage is not from within; it is from without, something or someone seizing control of him so completely that even the Dark One howls and rages and cannot break through the iron-grip of someone else’s spell on his mind.

He kills without thinking, without mercy, without stopping, and the Dark One grows ever angrier and ever fiercer because this is a thwarted outlet of rage, until at last everyone is dead in front of him and the rage drains away and Galahad _knows_.

Galahad leaves through the front door, even though it would probably be more strategic to leave through a window, because he’s been running from Morgana for a thousand lifetimes, and one can only run so long from destiny.

To see Agravaine holding the gun is a little bit of a shock, but not much; Morgana always liked having allies to do the dirty work.

Morgana herself is smirking at his side, and he knows at once that she is awake the way no one else has been. She’d been dangerous beforehand, of course, stinking of magic and hatred and a complete willingness to employ her sharp-bladed limbs from their past encounters, but right now she is practically _blazing_ , and the Darkness scrapes claws against the wall, eager to test itself anew against Morgana’s skill, but Galahad holds back because – 

Because – 

Coldness creeps up his spine, and Galahad stiffens. 

_Do nothing,_ Arthur commands, the Dagger gripped tightly in his hand, and the command takes so firmly that Galahad can do nothing, even though he longs to reach forward and kill them all, rip them apart into a million pieces and banish their souls into the void, because he can see their plans, he can read their minds, he knows all of their secrets, and Eggsy and Merlin and Michelle and the rest – they’re all just _expendable_ to Arthur, and – 

And the gun goes off, and Galahad goes down.

* * *

Then there is only pain, pain Galahad has not felt in a long time, because the bullet is lodged in his brain and for a normal human he would be on the edge of death’s door without immediate and competent medical care, but he is not a normal human and Agravaine and Morgana sure as hell aren’t going to call an ambulance for him.

The Darkness cannot heal him completely, not as it has in the past, because the command from Arthur still grips his spine, but it can keep him from teetering over the fence into death, and so Galahad relives the pain over and over and over again.

And Galahad says, _Leave me. Find a new host_ because after so many years he’s tired and sick and ready to pass on and he knows that the Darkness has always hungered for the freedom of the past ages, where it could roam and consume and destroy at will, instead of being leashed in a fragile mortal and only allowed out in small bits and pieces.

But.

But.

But the Darkness coils around him, like so many tails of power, and it says, _No._

It says, _You are mine._

It says, _We will perish or live together._

And Galahad hadn’t even known that the Darkness could die, but he reaches back and grasps those coils and thinks of Lancelot and Guinevere and Lee and Michelle and Freya and Eggsy and Merlin and thinks, _Together_.

* * *

Eventually, Arthur calls again, and the Darkness drags Galahad back to the Round Table to find Eggsy gaping and Arthur sitting coolly in his chair. The Darkness assesses the room – there are two glasses and a decanter, both filled with a poison that makes the Darkness hiss and rage; footage of the church playing in the fake mirror on the side; and a chip in Arthur’s neck, dagger in one hand and poison pen in the other.

“I’ll offer you a choice, Eggsy,” Arthur says gently, ignoring how Eggsy gapes at Galahad’s ruined, bleeding face. “You can join me and Harry in paradise. For your mother’s sake.”

And in that moment – that one, single moment – Galahad understands why the Darkness has never burned itself out, why it lives so long, why no amount of death or destruction has let it dissipate and find peace, because right now. Right now Galahad _hates_ Arthur, he hates him so strongly that he can’t stand the sight of his smug smile and sneering eyes and self-satisfied voice, he wants to rip Arthur apart into a million pieces and never mind all the oaths he’s made, all the times he’s saved Arthur, all the times Arthur has saved him, Galahad just wants him dead, dead, _dead_ , and he thinks it must be reflected in his stance or his remaining eye or even the way the shadow tendrils of Darkness that have been escaping his body sharpen and arch and whip in fury, because Eggsy, beautiful, sweet, lovely Eggsy, he takes one look at Galahad and says, “I’d rather be with Harry, thanks.”

And Arthur says, “So be it” and presses the pen and Galahad thinks, desperately, a long-ago given boon and he screams into the Void for Nimueh, for the sake of Lancelot and Guinevere and Michelle and Lee and everyone he’s ever failed, for just one moment where the world does not come crashing down and – 

And Arthur twitches. Furrows his brow. Touches his throat.

This time, Eggsy does not lean away, does not gape, not does flinch. As Arthur begins to choke and curse, Galahad is given a horrified front row seat as the boy he’s promised to protect and the man he’s sworn to serve confront each other and leave only one person standing in the end, unable to intervene because of Arthur’s death grip on the dagger and honestly uncertain about who, really, he’d actually help.

Arthur dies with a gurgle, bitter and old and vanquished, and the Dagger slips to the floor.

For the first time in thousands of years, Galahad is free.

“Jesus, Harry,” Eggsy says, staring at him. “What the hell, put a bandage on yourself, how the hell are you still alive?”

And it’s not quite the order he needs, but it’s so close, so Galahad leans back into the Darkness and lets it swallow him whole, lets the pain ebb away as magic rushes through his system to heal his wounds and restore strength to his limbs, and by the time he reemerges, Eggsy has gingerly yanked the chip out of Arthur’s neck and is giving it quite a disgusted look.

“I’m the Dark One,” Galahad answers, and Eggsy gives him a blank look. “Essentially, yes, magic exists; no, Merlin is not an actual wizard; and yes, I am immortal. A bullet is not enough to stop me.”

Eggsy blinks a few times, mouth agape, and then Arthur’s phone chimes and a countdown appears. He looks at it, wrinkles his mouth, and then looks up again at Galahad.

“So, uh, what now?”

This time, it’s the Dark One who answers. “Now,” they say, “we follow your lead, Kingslayer.”

* * *

Once upon a time, the High King Arthur Pendragon was a beloved man.

And in the beginning, he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand finally: the epilogue! Featuring Gazelle, Valentine, and more reincarnation shenanigans.


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For every beginning, there is an end.

In the beginning, there was Camelot and Excalibur and the Round Table and Arthur Pendragon, the High King. They had fought sorcerers and dragons and griffins and traitors and foreign kings, and Galahad had been proud of who and what he stood for.

In their second beginning, there had been a mansion rechristened Camelot and a sword nicknamed Excalibur and a Round Table slowly carved into a rectangle and an Arthur Pendragon masquerading as a King Arthur of the Kingsman. They had fought slimy politicians and mad scientists and double agents and crazy megalomaniacs and crime bosses, and slowly but surely it had become steadily harder for Galahad to look himself in the eyes and be proud of who he was and what he stood for.

Now, though, crouching in the plane and waiting for the fight to begin, cloaked in the powers of the Dark One and with Merlin at his side and Roxy soaring in the skies, Galahad feels _alive_ again.

“Valentine has a _lot_ of people,” Eggsy shouts from the cockpit, followed by an “Ouch!” as Merlin slaps him.

 _Merlin,_ Galahad chides, because he’s not sure why or how but after Arthur had breathed his last, Merlin had come skidding into the Round Table chambers, out of breath and missing his glasses for the first time in dozens of years and, most importantly, sparks lighting up his fingers. He’s alone; they’re cut off from most of the other Knights, who are either holed up or out of contact because they don’t know who’s in Valentine’s pocket and who isn’t, but Galahad knows Merlin isn’t the only one to have awoken, finally, to who he really is.

“Your boy needs to learn discretion,” Merlin replies critically, not bothering to shout. They both know Galahad can hear him.

Eggsy hisses like an angry cat, but from the immediate silence that follows, Merlin apparently just gave him a Look, and there is quiet once again on the plane as Merlin readies his computer and their weaponry.

Just before he disembarks, though, Eggsy comes over and nudges his shoulder. “Hey.”

“I’ll be fine, Eggsy,” Galahad says automatically. Without Arthur to hold him back with the Dagger, Galahad is at full strength and completely in control and although he can’t tear down the entire damn compound due to Morgana’s tinkering, he can certainly cause a great deal of damage, especially since she probably thinks he is dead. 

“I know you’re like . . . capable and experienced and apparently you also have this really powerful magic and all, but like . . . be careful?”

And Galahad has to smile. “Is that a question or a command?”

“I thought commands only worked with that knife thingy.”

“They work as about as well as promises to family and friends,” Galahad says, because he knows Eggsy knows all too well how promises made to family can bind tighter than anything else in existence.

“Oh.” Eggsy mulls it over for a minute, and he looks so gorgeous in his new suit that it’s completely worth all the money Galahad had to cough up to get it made so quickly and under Arthur’s nose. Merlin had given him so many looks for that suit alone when Galahad had retrieved it and brought it onto the plane. “So promise me.”

“Hmm?”

Eggsy takes his hand, and his hand is so warm, so alive and here and lovely that Galahad can’t help be breathless at the feel of it. 

“Promise me,” he repeats. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”

And for the first time, the Darkness retreats, dialing down so smoothly that Galahad is left standing alone in his own mind for the first time in thousands of years, and he can only stare because the Darkness has _never_ retreated before for a person, not ever, and he called Eggsy a Kingslayer, true, but still . . . 

“Okay,” Galahad says hoarsely. “I promise.”

Eggsy gives him a rakish smile and a wink and then dashes off to style his hair, and Galahad is left with Merlin’s widening smirk.

Galahad levels a finger. “Not. One. Word.”

Merlin snaps off a salute.

* * *

Storming the compound, as it turns out, isn’t that difficult at all. Galahad nearly feels his heart beat out of his chest when Charlie, the little bastard, holds a letter opener to Eggsy’s throat and boldly calls him out to Valentine, but Merlin throws a snarling snake he conjures out of midair at Galahad and he’s so distracted by it that in the time it takes him to get back up and vanish it, Eggsy has already disarmed Charlie and taken off running.

“Rude,” Galahad says. 

Merlin shrugs. “Next time I’ll glue you to your seat, then, is that better?” The words come out so fast Galahad barely understands him, but that’s normal; when Merlin is busy he tends to think faster, so all of his words come out faster too.

Two minutes later, Eggsy is skidding into the plane and collapsing in a chair – only for him to glare suspiciously when he realizes Galahad is carefully tucking weapons into the many, many, many hiding spots in his suit. Kingsman already builds in a great many hiding spots as they construct the suits, but Galahad has even more, because magic can truly be a wonderful thing for making little expandable and undetectable pockets.

“We have to go back,” Galahad says before Eggsy can ask. “Merlin can’t take down the central system from here, he can only delay it; it has biometric security.”

Eggsy squints. “And what, magic can’t overcome that?”

“Well, someone’s adjusted rather quickly.”

“Harry, you went from bleeding out of your empty eye socket to being completely healed, of course magic exists.”

“True. And in answer to your question about magic, you must remember that any skill we might have is a skill that our enemies might have too.”

Eggsy groans and slumps even further, although he sits up rather quickly when Merlin brushes past with a curt “Come here” and follows him obediently. If there’s one thing Merlin is excellent at it, it’s being both the “good cop” and “bad cop” when he trains Kingsman agents. Many of them hate his guts for most of training, but they also learn to listen to him without question and Eggsy is no exception.

Eggsy comes back with a satisfied smile and a Rainmaker. “It’s Gazelle, isn’t it? Valentine doesn’t strike me as the ‘magic’ type.”

“Sorcerers can be anyone, lad,” Merlin cautions. “Part of learning magic can also mean changing your face. Galahad and I, for example, haven’t always looked like this. But yes, it is Gazelle. In our day, she was known as Morgana, High Pristess of the Old Religion.”

The face Eggsy makes to that explanation nearly makes Merlin crack his façade and laugh.

* * *

Eggsy is a _genius_ , Galahad reflects, as heads explode all around them, and he remembers the first time he’d see Arthur in battle, fierce and quick and clever, and his heart aches and he decides, then and there, to remember Arthur as the king he had been, and not the man he had become.

It’s okay though.

Galahad can have a new King.

* * *

The second Galahad and Eggsy enter the room, magic glittering form every pore of his being and guns blazing, respectively, Morgana throws them the darkest look and makes a hand motion – and suddenly Galahad is halfway across the room, a veritable forest of silver and gold growing out of the discarded jewelry and furniture of the room around them, and with every struggle he can feel it growing tighter.

“I’ve had a thousand years to prepare for you, Dark One,” she purrs, stalking forward on silent blades. “For you – and your little Kingslayer here.”

“Harry!” Eggsy shouts, and then he barely dodges when Morgana charges.

It’s cold iron, Galahad realizes, as the Darkness slowly corrodes away the silver and gold to reveal the metal underneath. It must have cost a _fortune_ to acquire and conceal and work into the enchantments already here – but then again, Valentine had been rather rich this go-around. The blades that serve as her legs must be cold iron as well, because no matter how much he reaches out with magic to throw her off course from her attacks on Eggsy, the spells simply slide right off. Some he could attribute to her own skill as a High Priestess, but not all, because he’s had plenty of time to prepare for her as well and he’s done a lot of work.

Which is when Galahad notices something strange.

Morgana throws a spell mid-kick straight into Eggsy’s chest – and he only falls backwards. He gets right up afterwards and keeps on fighting.

Only that spell was strong enough to crush ribs and stop hearts and shatter minds _but Eggsy just shrugged it off_.

“Merlin,” Galahad says lightly in his comm, “did you see that?”

There’s a very telling silence on the other end. And it’s not like Merlin’s just busy or something; they didn’t have the time for the usual setup with separate comm systems so Roxy’s overheard all of Merlin’s exasperated shouting at them and they’ve heard all of her terrified screaming as she falls. If he was talking to Roxy, Galahad would be hearing it right now at full volume.

“Merlin, is there something you’re not telling me?”

“So, er,” Merlin starts, “you’re not the only one to try and cast spells on the lad, you know. And they just . . . slide right off. Protective or threatening.”

“I don’t remember Lee having that ability.”

“Me neither. And it’s not foretold either. But . . .”

Merlin trails off and Galahad knows they are thinking the exact same thing. Arthur came to power with magic blazing at his side; Eggsy is the Kingslayer, the one foretold to unseat Arthur and Camelot and he cannot wield magic – but he can’t be touched by it either. He almost cancels it out, in fact. It’s balance, and if Galahad knows anything about magic, he knows that balance is the first and most important thing.

Which is when Eggsy and Morgana launch themselves through the air at each other, Eggsy determined and Morgana furious, and they both glitter but in such different ways – Morgana with a barrage of spells emerging from her fingers and Eggsy, glowing as each spell bounces right off – and midway, Galahad just catches the _snick_ of a hidden blade being unleashed and he smiles.

And then they land, and Morgana’s smirk falters.

Poison can kill any sorcerer as dead as any spell or weapon, after all.

Morgana’s eyes roll back and her heart slows and she lands on her back with a thud and a sigh, and Galahad gasps a deep breath as the pressure finally eases and the cold iron begins to peel away. It’s further helped when Eggsy runs over and the cold iron crumbles to ashes as he punches at it.

“I’m fine, Eggsy, I’m fine,” Galahad says, although Eggsy ignores him in favor of running his hands over him and muttering furious little insults.

Thankfully, Merlin decides then to intercede. “NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO KISS AND MAKE UP!” he bellows into both of their ears, and they both jump apart as though they’d been caught naked on camera.

Eggsy says, “Right” and then he goes to Morgana and relieves her of one of her blades and chucks it right through the glass into Agravaine’s heart.

And as Agravaine lays dying, Galahad takes great pleasure in walking over, straightening his tie with cool nonchalance as Agravaine splutters and his eyes widen. “Hello again, Agravaine,” Galahad says pleasantly, and he’s gratified at the way Agravaine shudders; apparently they all really have gotten their memories back. “That was for conspiring against my king.”

“Galahad,” Agravaine gasps.

Then he goes shudders and closes his eyes and goes still and it is over.

Merlin says, “Right, well done, you two, not get your arses back to plan, I need to get Lancelot before she freezes.”

“One moment,” Eggsy replies, and then he slips off his glasses and tucks them in his pocket before turning to face Galahad with his arms loose at his side and perched forward on the balls of his feet. Galahad tenses without meaning to, because this is Eggsy and he’s never doubted the lad’s loyalty for a second, but that’s a fighting stance and – 

“Oh, to hell with it,” Eggsy says, and then suddenly – 

Suddenly, Eggsy’s hands are clutched in his suit, his knees knocking against Galahad’s, and his lips insistently pressing against Galahad’s, and Galahad is _kissing him back_.

Which is when common sense kicks in.

Eggsy makes a mournful little noise when Galahad pushes him aside, and it pulls at Galahad’s heart but he stands his ground. “Eggsy, I am your mentor,” he tries. “I knew your parents – hell, I’m _older_ than your parents combined. I put you in immense danger and has done gods know what to your life with the waters of Avalon and I’m the host of an unstable, dangerous magical Darkness and – Eggsy, I got your father killed and – ”

“And so what?” Eggsy interrupts. He’s got a cocky, calculating expression on his face, and gods, but Galahad loves his all the more for it.

 _Guard your heart, Galahad,_ Nimueh had warned, and she had been so right.

Eggsy levels a finger at him. “You’re the one who told me that age is just a number, that anyone could turn their life around no matter their age. I reckon falling in love counts among those ‘turning your life around’ things. And I’m a consenting adult! I can do what I want.”

“Gentlemen,” Merlin says, exasperated. “Is now really the time?”

“I ain’t giving Harry the chance to run away and nearly die. Again.”

“Then I will tie him down myself, just get your arses _back to the plane_!”

And when it’s that tone of voice, neither of them argue.

* * *

“Merlin!”

“What? I promised the wee lad I’d tie you down.”

“You never said anything about cold iron filaments! How did you even get your hands on this?”

“Arthur was rich, and sometimes he was a really paranoid bastard.”

“Merlin, you – untie me!”

“Hmm, what was that? Oh, look at that, the computer analysis is done on those internal SIM cards, I’ve got to dash.”

“MERLIN!”

* * *

“I don’t care,” Eggsy says, and his eyes are fierce and his hands clenched into fists. “I don’t care about – about your age or your Darkness, whatever the bloody hell that is, or the fact that you’re probably immortal or any of that. I just want you. For as long and as much as I can have you.”

“My dear Eggsy,” Galahad says, and his voice is dazed because he _wants_ , he wants so badly, but still – he cannot just give in. “My dearest, my darling, I will ruin you, do you understand that?”

 _I ruin everything,_ he thinks but does not say.

It doesn’t matter. Eggsy seems to hear it regardless, because his eyes harden and he leans forward until Galahad nearly goes cross-eyed from their closeness. He can feel the warmth of Eggsy’s breath on his face, and he shivers from the proximity and watches in shame as Eggsy lights up triumphantly.

“You want me too,” he realizes.

“I shouldn’t.”

Eggsy shrugs. “And I shouldn’t be a Kingsman. Who cares? You saved me, Harry. You’re the first person who ever looked at me and thought, ‘hey, this idiot could be something, let me help’.”

And just like, just as effortlessly and naturally as Eggsy’s shrugged off any and all spells, he’s barreled his way through Galahad’s defenses, and he looks at Eggsy and feels helpless – something he’s felt before so many times – but this time, it feels right, like the overwhelming current is taking him back to the ocean where he once was happy. And this time . . . this time Galahad just sighs and leans back and lets the current take him, just as he did once so long ago when the Darkness swallowed him whole.

“Okay,” Galahad whispers. “Okay.”

This time, Galahad initiates the kiss, and sometime in between all those kisses, Eggsy peels away those cold-iron ropes and they curl up and cuddle in the chair and Galahad feels drunk on happiness for the first time in his very, very, very long life.

* * *

“Now what’s this about waters for Avalon or something?”

“Oh, I – I was owed a boon. From the Lady of the Lake. When Arthur tried to poison you, he put a dose in both glasses so I transformed the poison into the waters from the Lake of Avalon. Only the pure of heart or those in true need can drink that and emerge unscathed.” 

“ . . . Cool. So does this mean I get magic powers?”

“No, my dearest, it does not. I’m afraid you have your own . . . talents.”

“Damn right I do.”

* * *

Merlin goes back, afterwards, to survey the remains and the wreckage. He leaves Roxy in the company of Percival, Galahad in the company of Eggsy, and Kingsman under the watchful eyes of them all. He is Emrys, after all; he has to ensure everything is tied up.

It doesn’t require much, thankfully. 

Morgana, who went by Gazelle, is quite unquestionably dead. Thankfully poisons work on sorcerers as well as almost everyone else. Agravaine isn’t in much better shape this time around; Valentine lies dead with a blade through his chest, and there is not even the tiniest hint of magic around him – apparently Morgana couldn’t even be bothered to try and protect him, even after she got her memories back.

Merlin still nearly takes out the rest of the room when Nimueh emerges from a nearby fountain, smiling faintly.

“Nimueh,” he snarls, and lets his eyes go golden.

“Emrys,” she returns coolly. “I come in peace, as the Lady of the Lake.”

He nearly calls the lightning down upon her a second time. “Freya was the Lady of the Lake. What. Did. You. Do.”

“Nothing. She was . . . concerned, when Galahad chose to return Excalibur to the waters of Avalon before the death of the High King. She chose reincarnation and allowed me to take up her post until her eventual return.”

Merlin blinks and feels the build-up of magic dissipate, almost from shock, as a different kind of charge builds within. It makes him feel slow and clumsy. “What? She chose . . . what?”

“She walks among your kind now,” Nimueh repeats. “I reckon her memories will return in time just like everyone else.”

And, unbidden, Merlin thinks of a lovely smile and clever eyes and beautiful brown hair and – 

Nimueh smiles, and it’s almost kind now. In a distant way, he can almost see the powerful, kind High Priestess she once was, instead of the hardened, cruel sorceress she became by the time her paths crossed with Merlin’s so long ago. He understands why so Ygraine and Uther would have trusted her and loved her as a friend. She was kind too, once.

“Go, Emrys,” Nimueh says quietly. “I will take care of this. Water washes away everything, in the end. Go and be happy.”

* * *

Later, Merlin will walk into HQ and see Roxy perched in his chair, fiddling with a tablet, and he will stop and stare and she will say, “What, cat got your tongue, Emrys?” and he will fall to his knees and nearly cry and he will somehow manage to say, “Is this why you dislike flying?” and she will say, “Of course it is. I prefer my own wings.” (He will actually cry then.)

Later, the Round Table will assemble again, with old and new friends alike, and welcome to their ranks the new Lancelot and the new Galahad, after they unanimously elect the old Galahad to the seat of King Arthur. (He immediately returns the Round Table to its original shape.)

Later, Galahad will go to see Michelle and Daisy as Eggsy invites them to move into his new Kingsman-provided house just down the street from Galahad’s, and Michelle will be torn between slapping him and hugging him and instead will drop Daisy into his arms and he will be forced to babysit as a compromise. (It’s okay, Daisy is a wonderful baby.)

And much, much, much later, Eggsy will take the Dagger in his hands and pour all of his love into it and watch it shatter into a million pieces, because the one thing the Darkness cannot be commanded to destroy is love, and although the Darkness will be free, then, free to exist without needing to be bound to a human host, it stays with Galahad anyways. (It’s grown fond of him, after all.)

But for now – for now, Eggsy and Galahad curl up on one of the tiny beds in the Kingsman plane and they kiss and sleep and cuddle and laugh, and after thousands of years, Galahad will finally have the happily-ever-after to go with his once-upon-a-time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap, everyone! Thank you so, so, so much to everyone who's helped me along the way, including but not limited to: [insanereddragon](http://insanereddragon.tumblr.com/), [elletromil](http://elletromil.tumblr.com/), [PKA42](http://pka42.tumblr.com/), and of course, my amazing and darling artist, [Aomaoe](http://aomaoe.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Inspiration for this fic was drawn from the Merlin TV show, the Once Upon A Time TV show, and Gerald Morris's "A Squire's Tale" series.

**Author's Note:**

> I am also on [tumblr](http://thesilverqueenlady.tumblr.com)! Feel free to wander over and talk to me, I'm involved in a lot of fandoms and I don't bite :D


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